


The Apple Kerfuffle

by keire_ke



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Is a Good Friend, Tony Being Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 22:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3994789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve always takes a bite of Bucky's apples. It's a source of much puzzlement and many questions among the denizens of the Avenger's Tower, but of course asking why that is the case would violate Sam Wilson's patented manual, whose main points were detailed in the infamous <i>Super Soldier Therapy for Dummies</i> PowerPoint presentation. When it becomes apparent the habit dates back to the times only Steve's memory can recall with any measure of reliability, the race to cajole the truth out is on.</p><p>Whether the story will be believed, is another matter entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time in Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the lovely Nyxira!
> 
> Sadly, due to changes in Photobucket policy I can no longer add the art here directly. However, it can be found [here](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/post/121953427364/the-apple-kerfuffle-a-fic-by-me-steve-always).

**New York, 2015**

The list of things that make Bucky's mouth curl ever so slightly upwards (but enough to be classified as a smile) is a short one, and apples occupy a high sixth position. Steve Rogers is, of course, number one, which Tony Stark is only slightly miffed about, but JARVIS seems to be a close second, which Sam counts as partial a win on Tony's account. Natasha and Sam have to share the third spot (which: ouch), but there are worse fates: the electric snuggie with seven heating modes is number four, followed by chocolate, then the apples. After the apples there is the brand new mp3 player that Tony personally installed in Bucky's left wrist, ignorable by the casual observer (provided the casual observer's first thought isn't "holy shit, that guy's arm is made of metal!"), but intimately connected to the completely indiscreet Bluetooth headphones. Sam reminds himself periodically to ask about the special features, because if he stands really still he can hear the wisps of music, so after spending enough time as the Silent, Comforting Presence he knows Bucky's flipping through the songs by tapping his fingers, and that is hella impressive, in his book. Rounding up the list are fancy bath salts and sunshine, both strong contenders to have made it this high up.

It stands to reason that the smiles are not the same. Steve's smile is less a smile per se, but rather a multi-platform performance. It begins with a full-body glow, combined with a shy, subtle softness, and whose culmination is the delicate curve of Bucky's pink lips. It's unreal to the point that Sam's strongly considering emailing Snuggle an apology video: he never believed in true softening magic (and in fact derided the creepy bear's addiction to the stuff) until he saw the snips and snails and puppy dog tails under the Winter Soldier's skin become buttery-soft and glowy. It's also worth mentioning that when Steve is being particularly endearing and whatever is keeping Bucky running is pulling out all the stops on the glowing front, the air miraculously starts to smell like cherry blossoms. No joke, Sam confirmed this with Natasha. The air shimmers and any day now there would be cherry petals floating past.

The smile reserved for JARVIS, in contrast, is full of wonder and delight, lightly sprinkled with curiosity, communicated in a fractional widening of eyes. Sam's and Natasha's smiles are identical, and happen in sharp bursts of joy; they are sudden and shared like a playful slap to the shoulder. Current count: eight for Sam, eleven for Nat, but Sam's got big plans for the weekend, which should leave Natasha in the dust.

Rest of the items on the list have its own particulars, but they aren't _special_. Comparatively speaking, that is. Anyone can smile like Bucky does when they are sitting in a sunbeam with soft music seeping directly into their ears, it's an experience that smiling is _for_ , but there's no magic in that, or in any of the little things that make Bucky pause and trail a careful finger down their surface in silent wonder that wrecks Sam's poor heart and does unspeakable things to Steve's.

Apples though. First of all, apples, in the elusive Barnes experience, have to be a hilarious joke at the world's expense, because the little smile that everyone treats, rightfully, like a miracle, has it all: a twist to the mouth, a faint crease in the forehead, and a fleeting glance at Steve. Plus, the smile has lasting power for something with such an ephemeral cause. Not that – and Sam sighs internally, because damn it, he didn't eschew philosophy in favor of Air Force to be saddled with inconvenient metaphysics – humans aren't ephemeral to a man who intermittently saw a century go by, and stands to see another. Nonetheless, the smile you can just barely see behind an apple's glossy surface is a secretive one, one that shares with the world only what it needs to, and not a thing more, and Sam, for one, needs to know why.

All in all, the apple thing is nagging at Sam. He's not a terribly curious person by nature, but hell, he is a therapist now. God willing, he will never see another case as professionally interesting as Bucky's, and it's bringing out whatever curiosity he's got stashed in the back of his mind. He's also not the only one affected, as it turns out, because Natasha grabs him by the elbow one day in the sad season that passes for winter in big cities and asks, "What is with Bucky and apples?"

"How should I know?"

"Steve tells you things."

"He tells you things, too."

The staring contest goes on for a while. Sam is more or less sure the two of them have equal claims on the second spot in Steve's affections. The distant, unattainable first is now and forever held by the unquestionable champion of the Steve-lympics, James Buchanan Barnes, and that's cool, it's a fact of life. Sam's not gonna go up against a guy that the Power of Love brought back from a Dark Place. He's a romantic (and, if he has to admit it, he watched all five seasons of _Sailor Moon_ when his cousin went through a phase and may or may not have the _R_ movie cleverly hidden on his iPad), and that's a venture doomed to failure, anyway.

"So between the two of us, we should know," Natasha says intensely, when Sam concedes the match. Blink sometimes, woman.

"It's no big deal, really."

Natasha narrows her eyes. "Steve always takes a bite of Bucky's apples."

…yeah, which brings Sam to the _other_ thing about apples. "Really?"

"Every single time."

"Maybe they clean the fruit with something Bucky doesn't like? You know how it is with brainwashing, live immolation and decapitations are safe subjects, but don't mention what were they, Matryoshka dolls, 'cause that's five hours of panic and screaming?" That had been a fun afternoon, Sam reflects. It started with Thai take-out and a movie, it ended with gently coaxing a panicking supersoldier off the rooftop, in the middle of a snowstorm. Sam was going to feel angry about it, but, when they finally managed to get inside, Bucky was so obviously miserable and distraught a man with his heart and soul surgically removed would have trouble heckling him any further. Not that heckling Bucky is ever a mission for those without a death wish – if nothing else Steve rarely abandoned his post as a Bucky-world interface, which, now that Sam thinks about it, is odd, but then who is he to tell a man who survived a seventy-year ice-bath what to do with his life. If he wants to spend the rest of his life in slavish devotion to his long-lost BFF, Sam's not gonna stop him.

Natasha brings him back to the immediate present with a look. "It's only ever apples."

"Okay, that is odd." Sam gives it another moment. "Really?"

"Yesterday Bucky ate a whole bunch of grapes, two apples and a peach. Steve handed him the grapes, the peach and one of the apples. He only bit the apple."

"Okay, that is weird. What about the other apple?"

Natasha frowns. "I don't know. He was eating it when I walked in."

"Does JARVIS record this?" Not a fun subject, truth be told, but Sam was raised in a religious environment, he knows the feeling of being watched all the damn time. His reluctant inner agnostic is kind of disappointed with the rest of him for how quickly he adapts to looking at the ceiling and asking for stuff again. "JARVIS?"

"As per instruction, Sergeant Barnes is monitored at all times," JARVIS tells them smoothly. "However, only he, Captain Rogers, and Miss Potts have access to the recordings. They could be made available to Mr. Wilson upon request, as per Captain Rogers' amendment, for the purpose of therapy."

Sam winces while Natasha favors him with an unimpressed look. "Well?" her eyebrow seems to ask.

"I can't ask JARVIS for surveillance footage for no good reason. The man's entitled to his privacy!"

"We're talking about the common room here. No one's trying to peek under his skirt."

"I'm authorized to ask for the videos if there's a reasonable suspicion me viewing them could help with his therapy." In fact, to date he asked only once, in Steve's presence. It was right after the Matryoshka incident, and he only did it because Bucky asked to be left alone, which made Steve unhappy. Even then he only watched enough to make sure Bucky was staying put.

Natasha lets her head loll to the side, possibly because that's the angle which makes her (very fetching) pout look the most attractive. "Don't you think the apple situation is weird?"

"It's clearly not new, and Steve is participating."

"We're not violating anyone's privacy, here," Natasha says smoothly. "We're talking five minutes of video of the common room, while Bucky and Steve were setting up that game you like, and waiting for the rest of us."

"Dubious value for therapy purposes."

"JARVIS?" Natasha cranes her neck upwards. "Are the videos in any way incriminating?"

"I couldn't say, Miss Romanoff," JARVIS says. He sounds as amused as only artificial intelligence can. "I'm only a building."

"Aren't you curious?"

"You will recall I'm a sophisticated program, not a human being."

"Tony made you."

"That is correct."

"Then how can you not be curious?"

"I have very effective denial subroutines, Miss Romanoff."

"Sam," Natasha says. "Steve is not just playing along, Steve is working on muscle memory there, meaning this is not new, not a coping technique: this is something from _before_."

"All the less reason for me to ask." Sam crosses his arms, but yeah, at this point? He will definitely probably ask. Maybe. "It's his choice."

"Again: we are merely observing the common room during the time when he knew he was being filmed. No one's privacy is being violated." Natasha grins. "I know you want to."

Sam is not that good a person, really. He tries, he does, but for all that he knows the official Captain America story by heart (with a grandfather who once shook hands with Gabe Jones, who wouldn't?), Bucky is seriously throwing a major spanner in the _official_ part of it, just by being there, and that's without even mentioning the avalanche of revelations that followed him into the future and moved in without anyone noticing. Sam was still reeling from the notion of Captain America, the world's greatest soldier, having a sense of humor fit for the docks and the ability to burp on cue, and here comes a random fireside story about the aforementioned super-soldier deliberately disobeying direct orders for an intensely personal side-quest.

Not cool, Barnes.

On the other hand… "No," he says, and God only knows what it costs him. "I'm sorry, I can't."

Natasha narrows her eyes and for a few moments Sam actually worries he might get eviscerated, but all she does is pat his shoulder. "Alright, we will not abuse your powers," she says, even though the notion seems both foreign and distasteful in her mouth. Sam is also not deaf: he hears her mutter "today".

"We could try an experiment," Sam says.

"I'm listening."

"Who usually supplies the fruit? I know Steve and Bucky do some of their own grocery shopping, but I highly doubt they fill all the fruit bowls, especially those in the common rooms."

Natasha grins, bright and dangerous. "I like how your mind works. JARVIS!" She looks to the ceiling with that same devilish grin. "I'd like to request a menu change."

"Of course, Miss Romanoff."

"I want apples in every fruit bowl. One apple for every other fruit. Different varieties of apples, too."

"As you wish, Miss Romanoff," JARVIS says, and if Sam wasn't highly trained in the art of recognizing inflection in the voice of artificial creations (thank you, _The Hunt for the Winter Soldier_ , a play written, directed by and starring Sam Wilson), he would have missed the clear amusement.

"Denial subroutines my ass," Sam mutters, but hey, it's not every day that an omnipresent robotic entity supports your clever plans. The experiment is on.

In a spirit of true scientific discovery they gather data, make observations, and compare notes. The results are as conclusive as they can be. Over a three week period Bucky consumes a total of twenty-seven apples, with no obvious preference for variety, every single one of which was first tasted by Steve. He also ate peaches, pears and oranges, frowned at bananas, regarded passion fruit with suspicion, and peeled a whole bucket of kiwis for everyone to share with the Belgian chocolate fondue. None of those merited Steve's involvement.

The plot thickened substantially when the fruit salad, which contained diced apples as well as a handful of unseasonal fruit, was consumed without a twitch. Sam has no idea what to make of that, other than file it properly on the encrypted pen drive Natasha set aside for that purpose. There is an even more encrypted folder on the drive, filled with their findings, be they in the form of notes, photos or videos.

The obvious follow-up problem is this: Bucky is a patient of Sam's (which is wholly unprofessional, for a variety of reasons, but who else is he going to trust?), and this is a matter that seems to have next to no bearing on his mental health. Well, other than the obvious, because who doesn't feel better after eating a delicious apple? The point being, all of this makes Sam unwilling to engage. Plus, pestering Bucky for answers is as pointless as it is dangerous, and since Sam was the one who insisted the proper protocol was to wait for volunteered information before asking detailed questions, they are a little stuck.

Thank God for Tony Stark.

Not that he and Natasha weren't going to say anything, ever, c'mon. They are only human. Yet their mutual fondness for Bucky means they have to bide their time and await their opportune moment. Tony Stark, on the other hand, believes that an opportunity is something to be generated, rather than grasped, and as such he sees no problem in raising the issue he feels like raising.

Just in time, too: not too long after phase one of their observation is tentatively concluded, a break in the routine is observed. To be honest the occurrence means Sam is a little too stunned to move, because while the biting of the apple is a ritual that seems to have transcended centuries (even millennia, technically), and has been observed daily, it's always been Steve's quirk. Steve would pick the apple, shine it on his sleeve, take a bit and hand it over, implying the significance is in the sharing rather than the tasting per se, but this time it is Bucky who reaches for the fruit bowl and comes up with an apple. He weighs its insignificant bulk in the hand that can crush cars and contemplates the purpose of meaning, probably. He's been jumpy all morning, shying out of conversations and avoiding eye contact, and now he is staring at the fruit like it could answer all his questions. Sam tenses with excitement and Natasha reaches surreptitiously into her pocket to get her phone.

Bucky lifts the apple, cradled it in his metal palm, and sends it into a nicely curved arch that circles his head and targets the landing space of Steve's lap. Steve snatches it mid-flight and takes a bite without looking up from his tablet, then stretches his arm out to return it.

A Natasha-flavored voice in the back of Sam's mind starts listing the game-changing features of the event. Sam sits up straight and throws her an intense look, but neither is ready to speak. Steve is utterly focused on the article he's reading – some kind of major art exposition is in town, and the art critics are descending on it like vultures onto a lightly sunned gazelle – and Bucky is peering over his shoulder with equal zeal, even if his eyebrows effectively communicate his disinterest in the subject.

And it is in that moment, when the experiment is clawing at both Sam and Natasha's insides, with their the curiosity held at bay by sheer force of will, that Tony Stark gets to shine his intrusive rays upon their unknowing subjects. "Hey popsicles," Tony says, bless his meddling soul. "What's with you and fruit?"

Bucky and Steve both freeze, Bucky perched on the backrest of the couch, Steve sitting on it proper. It's mostly funny because of the apple they're holding between them, the one that Steve's handing over, one perfect bite missing, and bulging out Steve's cheek.

Steve chews, swallows and asks, "huh?" just as Bucky takes the apple and bites into it, lips closing around the mark Steve left.

"Yeah, that. You know we have plenty of fruit now, right? You don't need to share."

"I wouldn't call it sharing," Bucky says, taking off a quarter of the tiny apple in one bite.

"Exactly. So what's with that thing?" Tony waves his hand around.

"I like apples," Bucky says, shrugging, a faraway look in his eyes.

"Do they taste better after Rogers slobbers all over? Because on one hand I can't see how, on the other, I can find a market for it. Probably in Japan, granted, but I'm pretty sure I could see you making good money on an apple stall."

"I do not slobber all over them," Steve says immediately.

"You always take a bite!"

"Which is not slobbering, as far as I know." Steve turns his head, looking for the fruit bowl, and Bucky obliges by selecting a pear and handing it over intact. "Those are good."

Tony throws his hands in the air. He's not giving up, far from it! But he is regrouping. Bucky's got a pretty transparent code going, one that even Tony Stark learned to respect. If he's sitting on the couch in Steve's personal bubble he's game for any typical twenty-first century entertainment, short of strippers in a giant cake with the words "caution: strippers" emblazoned on the sides. A hard-earned lesson, but one learned by all, thanks for nothing Tony Stark.

If he's sprawled on the couch but not practically in Steve's lap, then he's probably in a joking mood, and will take any opportunity to tell funny little stories that have everyone in paroxysms caused by having to balance laughter and horrible, crushing, second-hand guilt. It turns out that Bucky Barnes' sense of humor makes _Cards Against Humanity_ look like an exercise in political correctness. He sells it, nonetheless, mostly because half the stories are about terrible shit that happened to him, which makes it hard to question, contest, or disapprove of. Plus, the stories are pretty goddamn funny, Sam has to admit with a guilty conscience. He never thought he'd be crying tears of laughter while listening to a story about that time a friend of his woke up in the middle of surgery, corrected the surgeon's on their bullet-extraction technique, and got back-handed for his trouble, but being a part-time Avenger is introducing him to a wide array of new experiences.

The fact that Steve was right all along, in that Bucky is shockingly loveable, for someone born and raised in the cesspool of the early twentieth century, and who didn't earn it by being a good parent to at least two generations, helps. Steve is generally the only one not amused, but that's probably because he's on the verge of tears half the time.

Now, that's all if Bucky's sitting on the couch, like a normal person. If he's perching on the couch's backrest, like he is right now, he'll entertain complex questions, but will dance out of offering any answers, short of the obvious.

Clever, brilliant Tony, turns to Steve instead. "C'mon. Would I poison him?" he asks earnestly, then catches himself. "Well, probably. And come to think of it, I might have used an apple, too, they are shockingly innocent, sitting in the bowl all by themselves. Or, there'd be toxic gas in your toothpaste, I like to be unpredictable."

Sam's thanking his lucky stars he's chosen to watch Bucky's expression, because something happens there during Tony's speech. It's subtle, but it's there, and it unfolds slowly until the hand that's holding the apple falls slowly, only to rest on his knee. His bare toes dig into the couch cushions, anchoring him to the textiles, hopefully to the physical world as well.

"I bit an apple," he says and licks his lips, catching the last stray droplets of juice. His gaze flies right over Sam's head and into the void that never seems to leave his immediate surroundings. It gives Sam serious willies when he does that, this being the age of Slenderman, even if the Winter Soldier is something Slenderman wouldn't want to meet in a dark forest. A lot of Sam's perfectly rational fears went away once Bucky entered his life, thank you very much. So, he watches Bucky seek out his unnamed spot in the void and pull on the faintest glimmering threads populating it, weave them into words. "It was red and sweet. Dum Dum was laughing at something Morita said. There was snow everywhere, but I was so sleepy I just lied down, didn't even finish it. I woke up in a glass box."

"Wow," Tony says, after a whole minute of absolute silence. "I'm disappointed. Your mother clearly read _Snow White_ to you one too many times, mystery solved. Actually, JARVIS, wasn't there a movie? Made by the evil corporation which sticks mice on everything?"

"Disney's _Snow White and the Seven Dwarves_ came out in 1937," JARVIS says in his best Wikipedia voice.

"Did you have cinemas back then?" Tony asks, but at this point no one is paying attention to him, which is probably the reason he is still talking. Sam and Natasha are staring at Steve, whose face goes through the patented "Bucky Is Remembering Actual Facts, Be Strong, Steve, Don't Cry" circle of doom. He has yet to manage a casual revelation without the misting of eyes. That time Bucky remembered ice cream on a summer day in Brooklyn (apparently a special treat because Steve'd broken his drawing arm) Steve excused himself to bawl for ten minutes in the restroom of the McDonald's they'd stepped into.

This time, however, there's something very much like a wry smile on his face (though his eyes are definitely shinier than they ought to be). Sam would even go as far as calling it a grin, if he weren't too busy freaking out about the very specific, very artsy imagery, which is a lot less imaginary, going by the reddening in Steve's ears.

Even Tony notices. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"Well, actually…"

" _How_?"

"It happened in February of 1944," Steve begins, casting a look at the half-eaten apple Bucky's still holding against his knee. "We were stationed in Bavaria, and somehow the command snagged several bushels of apples from the nearby village…"


	2. As White As Snow

**Bavaria, 1944**

There was a bushel of apples in the corner of the tent. A bushel of wrinkled, golden apples, which filled the cramped, surprisingly dank space with their sweet fragrance. The presence of aged, delicious apples was no great mystery, compared to how exactly was the tent dank when outside one could shave with water: a nearby village had cellars filled with them, enough to feed the whole battalion and spare some for shenanigans as well.

Steve had seen the apple peddler. Of course he had seen her. She was the talk of the camp. Falsworth had laughed for a solid hour after his first viewing, and with good reason: the poor thing ambled around the camp, bent in half, distributing apples left and right. Steve winced in sympathy the first time – he had wells of sympathy in him for whoever had to live with a crook in their spine – but then she turned and, well, whatever sympathy flooded the carefully dammed reservoirs of Steve's soul was immediately drained by an onslaught of helpless giggles.

As it turned out, the disguise was only convincing when viewed from the back, and even then it was a stretch, once the illusion was pierced. However faulty Steve's understanding of fashion, even he knew wearing flowery skirts with plaid scarves was not done, which should have been his first clue. From what he observed about the peasant women of Bavaria, they tended towards plain fabrics, but in truth the mismatched costume helped rather than hindered the charm. Certainly, it left no one immune, possibly because completing the masquerade was the peddler's absolutely spot-on German accent, combined with broken English. Altogether the resulting impression was an unconvincing parody of an old woman selling her apples to foreign armies, and all the better for it. Steve tipped his hat to the man: Captain America's USO tour was nowhere near as effective at lifting everyone's spirits, and here a plain soldier managed what thousands of dollars, girls in revealing costumes and a dancing monkey couldn't. Bless that fella, whoever he was, and may the mud and grime of war keep him warm in his bunk.

"Something about this amuses you, Rogers?" Philips asked and Steve shook his head, crash-landing back in the colonel's tent.

"No, sir."

"Then kindly pay attention."

"Yes, sir." Steve obediently bent over the maps and hummed thoughtful assents while Philips sketched out the situation as they knew it. There was very little concrete evidence: some suspicious tire-tracks, indentations in the snow where there should be none, burned out patches of the forest, and, of course, the mysterious building, only found on certain maps of the area. It was about as tangible as smoke, but the longer Steve stared at the map and the intelligence, the longer he let the layers of the latter linger on top of the former, the more of a pattern emerged. It wasn't much, this pattern, merely hints which could still prove to be coincidence, but Steve's had a feeling this was a place Hydra fought to keep hidden, and so his intention was to fight just as hard to bring it to light.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Peggy asked him, a small smile curving her red mouth.

"It's worth checking out."

"There's not much there," Philips immediately countered, but this was a familiar song and dance, more so than the actual song and dance Bucky kept insisting Steve needed to master, never mind the harsh lessons taught by bruised toes.

"We've followed through on less. See this?" Steve points to a crossroads, no bigger than a pinprick on this map, one that in reality will be heavily shadowed by trees and possibly rocks. "This you wouldn't be able to see from the air. Practically every path heading this way is covered, and only three of those emerge near places we can actually monitor." This was the point at which the suggestions of a pattern converged; if there was anything to be seen, this was the place to start looking.

"It's your funeral," the colonel said, which was practically a blessing, far as Steve was concerned.

"Thank you, sir."

"Take Carter with you, and for God's sake, have her shoot someone before she strangles my batman."

"Yes, sir," Steve said automatically, although the temptation was not easily shaken. The batman was, by all accounts, a smug little shitstain, as Bucky was kind enough to enunciate that one time, the words seeping from between his even teeth.

Peggy grinned at him over the table, the redness of her lipstick slashed through the middle by gleaming white teeth, communicating without words that while she thought it would be no great loss, she'd gladly trade the strangling for a more valiant activity. "Shall we?" she said, rolling up the map.

Philips rolled his eyes, but waved them along, gathering up the papers on his desk for review. A pile of letters awaited his signature, and wasn't that a task Steve would face all of Hydra to avoid. He and Peggy wasted no time cutting straight through the camp, to where the Howling Commandos were trying to combat the winter chill with a suspiciously generous fire.

"Do we have enough firewood for that?" Steve asked, frowning when Morita threw another log into the flames, sending a whirlpool of sparks into the evening sky.

"Woe is us, miles and miles into a dense fucking forest," Bucky told him from across the fire, voice muffled by the cap covering his face. "Wherever shall we find wood to replenish the meagre fuel supply."

"I expect we can start burning sarcasm when wood runs out." Peggy nudged a spare log closer to the fire with her boot and sat down, crossing her legs.

"Sure, if you can find a way of turning that into fuel, I'll be happy to do my part and gab 'til the supply is brimmin'." Bucky tipped the cap off his head and sat up straight, shoulder blades shifting against the tree at whose base he was sprawled. "Carter, what a nice surprise. Philips finally learned to live without you?"

"Got tired of me, probably."

"God forbid." Bucky found Steve's eyes and grinned, eyes alight with the incandescence of the burning wood. "Tell me you've got news."

Steve straightened his back. "We have a mission, yes."

"I was hoping for a trip to Paris, but I'd do anything to get out of this dump. Do share."

Steve perched on another log – where did they even get those, everyone was under strict orders not to leave camp – and propped the folded map on his knee. "There've been suspicious movements, transports going back and fro in armored vans, supplies going missing from nearby villages, including the occasional animal. Nothing major so far, but I think there could be a Hydra base nearby. We're to do recon and report back to command with detailed intel."

Dum Dum and Gabe shared a look that Steve would have trouble missing if he had been asked to wear a bucket on his head. Not that he needed to notice, Dugan rarely didn't voice a thought. "What, that's it?" Dum Dum said, right on schedule, scratching the back of his head. "Really?"

"What more do you want?"

"The way things had been going, tanks, maybe an elephant. C'mon, this place is quiet as a nursery, what do they got that's worth our time?"

Across the air shimmering with heat Bucky's eyebrows lifted and curved into sharp peaks. "You ever been to a nursery, Dum Dum?"

"I'm a happy bachelor, so no."

"This explains so much about you," Bucky muttered, balancing a lit twig on the tip on his boot. The tip whirled through the air as the twig flickered between his fingers, lighting a cigarette along the way, before disappearing back into the roaring flames. "Why an elephant though?"

"Well, given what we've been dealing with so far, an elephant would be a nice change of pace. Those things can be vicious, right?"

"They're intelligent, gentle creatures," Falsworth said. "They love to play."

Bucky's grin got toothier. "So basically they're Dum Dum's people, 's what you're saying?"

"Hey!"

"Aww, that explains everything!" Bucky waggled his eyebrows and blew a ring of smoke in Dugan's direction. "Dumbo's looking for a wife!"

"For you, maybe."

"I'm more of an ostrich kind of a man," Bucky told him, eyelashes fluttering, and Peggy bit her lip to keep from laughing. "Carter, back me up, ostriches beat elephants by a mile, right?"

"I'm strictly into crocodiles," she said primly.

"Aren't those just belts with teeth?"

"Handbags, sergeant. Handbags with teeth, although a cape or two would not go amiss. Very useful in combat."

"Capes and handbags. You spooks lead an exciting life."

"You have no idea." Snow was falling again; enormous flakes found their way into Peggy's gleaming hair and settled on the padded shoulders of her jacket. She took her gloves off, rubbed her hands together and accepted a cigarette from Gabe, sinking into the merriment of the company. She belonged there, Steve thought, not for the first time, with them. Soon enough the flask Dernier got his hands on recently made it her way, and a guffaw of laughter let it be known that Peggy Carter could take a shot with the best of them.

Steve left the squad to their bonding and spread the map on the hood of a nearby jeep, confident that standing still long enough will result in Bucky rolling his eyes and ambling over to his side, away from the fire, a shadow with a fiery aura, a spot of light from the cigarette illuminating his smirking lips. Sure enough, not thirty seconds later, Bucky's elbows hit the hood, and a cloud of smoke obscured the representation of relevant terrain.

"You know, we could save so much time if you just came along to these meetings," Steve said, brushing away the smoke and a fresh layer of snowflakes.

"That's not how the chain of command works, Steve. Officers plan, grunts do. Not that you'd know, Captain. See, I told you skipping school would bite you in the ass."

"I only ever missed school because I was busy keeping my lungs in."

"Your meetings are boring and I'm not great at standing at attention." Bucky took a deep drag and slowly let the smoke out, pinching the cigarette out of his mouth and holding it up over the map. With the fingers of his other hand he traced the convergence of roads and tracks arriving at the whereabouts of Steve's conclusions. "Let me see. All tree, no actual viable intel, huh? Just hearsay and rumors?"

"There've been deliveries made here and here," Steve pointed to the site of a recent battle, one the Allies were still recovering from. "We don't know where exactly they're coming from, or even what they are. Whatever was left exploded on contact, and there's fuck all we could do to track it."

"It's a fucking forest, where couldn't they be hiding." Bucky shrugged and his hand sailed past Steve to flick the ash off the cigarette. "I'm guessing you got something rattling about in that big head of yours?"

"According to the map there's a crossroads here, but with the ravines and the trees, you could get an elephant in and out of just about every site in this radius, and we have no two maps that show actual facilities."

"Elephant, huh?"

"Goddamn it, Dugan," Steve muttered, while Bucky sniggered.

"So what, we go in, follow the yellow brick road?"

"That's the plan."

Bucky frowned, tapped several pencil marks Steve made earlier, highlighting potential sites to investigate. "All of these I think we might as well ignore, the road runs too close to the villages."

"There's plenty of space between the road and the houses."

"Yeah, but they look like pastures, or what else flat you've got in the country." Bucky pressed his lips against his fingertips, sucking the air through the burning tobacco. Wisps of smoke spilled from his mouth when he continued to speak. "Unless I'm much mistaken, those buildings here would be barns. People would be wandering by to check up on back walls and what-not, big transports would be noticed, sooner or later. They tend to make noise."

"How are you an expert on what's going on around the back of a barn?"

"Dernier has an uncle that owns a farm, and anyway, if I owned a cow in the middle of a war, I don't think you could get me out of the barn with the promise of a hot meal."

"I did wonder, but then you said ostriches…" Steve said, not even trying to keep a straight face.

"You're a sick fuck, Rogers." Bucky flicked the butt of the cigarette over his shoulder, where it met its demise with an angry hiss. "Now, lemme have a look, you go keep Carter warm, we can chat about this later."

Steve paused, knuckles digging into the cold metal of the car, which burned even through paper. "She's dressed for the weather and there's a fire."

For the longest moment Bucky stared at him with his mouth half-open. "My God, you really are a total clot."

"What?"

"Never mind. What were you thinking?"

"Well, Philips scored some of the older maps, and there's supposed to be some sort of a building around here." Steve tapped an area which seemed to contain nothing but rocks, thinly disguised with trees, and a lake. "It's not a good map, otherwise, but if it is halfway accurate, it means there's a hidden building in a highly defensible spot with plenty of cover. With what's been happening on the nearby battlefields, they're doing research."

"Sounds like Hydra alright. I'm guessing that's where you wanna be heading, in defiance of common sense and reason?" Bucky asked, eyes trained on the map.

"If it's there, it's is a building in the middle of nowhere. I think it's a pretty safe bet."

"I can't get over how you don't catch fire using the word 'safe'. Jesus must be having a day off."

"Oh, like you're famous for keeping yourself out of trouble."

Bucky gave him a look that clearly suggested a swift ending to the line of thought, but hey, Steve was never good at picking up subtle clues, so he smiled and added, "I mean, I didn't send you into that brewery. That was your genius plan. I remember being strongly against it." He hadn't been around at the time, and when he finally arrived everything was on fire already, and Bucky, safe and sound, was watching it burn.

"It worked, and it was necessary."

"Bucky, you blew up the whole building and set half the village on fire," Steve said, and despite his best efforts a faint hint of reproach entered his voice, a hint laden with hypocrisy, considering his preferred modus operandi. He deserved the scathing glare he got in response.

"Uh – whole building full of contaminated vats of beer, and the village was empty. I still say I oughta have gotten a medal for it, that shit could've blinded half the army, while the other half was out on patrol."

"Didn't you? I was sure Philips said something about recommending you."

"Nah, apparently everyone getting to keep their sight is not that important. I knew I should've gone after the condom factory instead."

"Assholes," Steve said solemnly, and carefully erased the faintest traces of a smile from his lips. "Failing to preserve the sanctity of beer."

"Laugh it up, Mr. Flag Man," Bucky said, looking up through his eyelashes, on which a snowflake was alighting, swiftly brushed away with a worn leather glove, "some of us still enjoy the spirits."

"You haven't had beer those past three months!"

"That can't be right."

"It's always been whiskey, or sometimes vodka."

"First of all, it was mostly brandy, you uncultured swine," Bucky said, struggling to curl his tongue around Peggy's posh accent, and failing hilariously. "Secondly, doesn't mean I won't be having beer when it gets warm again. I like to keep my options open."

"Yes, yes, we're all thankful."

"Besides, that stunt wasn't all me, Dugan helped."

"That's not the way I heard it."

Bucky frowned. "What did you hear?"

"Dum Dum's official statement was 'he ran straight in, what was I gonna do, leave the poor idjit to get himself blown up?'"

"Wow, and here I thought I wasn't going to take it out on him." Bucky tugged at the scarf around his neck, scratched the curve of his jaw, huffing in frustration when the gloves prevented him from getting at that itch. "When do you wanna leave?"

"The snowfall's expected to continue through the night, I think we oughta make use of it."

"Visibility is very limited." Bucky shook a small pile of fluff off his cuff, then swept the rest of the map with his elbow. "If the wind picks up – which I'm pretty sure it will, pressure's dropping – I'm gonna have to shadow you pretty closely, which kind of defeats the purpose of dragging a sniper around."

"Aw, but there are so many reasons to cart you around! You're also funny." Steve fluttered his eyelashes and beamed. "We're doing recon. I want everybody on the ground, anyway, if you think you can keep quiet long enough."

"Ay ay, Cap. Funny man reporting. So, six a.m.?"

"Four. We should get here," Steve tapped the area adjacent to the crossroads, "before daybreak. Intel suggests whatever movement is there, it happens around sunrise."

"Sounds like fun. You wanna break the news to Gabe, or should I?" Bucky grinned, cast a quick look at the fire and sniggered into his glove. The Howlies were getting into the spirit worthy of a tavern by the docks, a sure sign sleep would not enter their minds soon. Gabe's voice rose to the occasion, much like the beleaguered sailor whose bawdy tale he was belching out.

It would be a crime to interrupt the song, Steve thought, and grinned. "Well, there being a chain of command and all, I think you can handle it, sergeant."

"How did Mrs. Rogers end up raising such an asshole, I will never know." Bucky cast one last look at the map, shook the fresh snow out of his hair and ambled over to the fire, nudging the log Gabe was sitting on along the way. Steve followed, for no particular reason other than Gabe's face being pretty darn funny whenever he was informed he needed to get up earlier than he'd have liked. "Alright, party's over. You get half an hour to get your asses into bedrolls, no exceptions, looking at you, Carter. We're hitting the road dark and early tomorrow morning."

"You don't mean early like seven early, do you?" Gabe asked, frozen in trepidation. "Seven's plenty dark."

"Do I look like I mean seven?"

Gabe let out a long groan and collapsed into the snow, covering his face. "Why, God, are you punishing me. How bad is it?"

"Four," Bucky told him pleasantly. "Which is why I strongly suggest you dig yourself outta your warm spot in the frozen water bits and roll into a bed."

"What's the point, I'm gonna be rolling out of it in a few hours," Gabe grumbled, but in seconds he was back on his feet, kicking snow onto the fire.

"Speaking of pointless exercises," Morita said. "Sarge—"

"Leave it," Bucky commanded with a shake of his head. "There's still a couple of hours until it goes, I'll send Wroniecki and his boys to warm up after a patrol. They ought be about done now."

The Commandos groaned and moaned, and slowly evacuated the area, throwing a few half-hearted salutes Steve's way. Peggy stood with them, shook her head, dislodging a fair amount of snow in the process, and made for her sleeping quarters with one last smile in Steve's direction.

"Four a.m. everyone is out of their tents, in full make-up!" Bucky shouted at their backs, then whirled in place and jabbed a finger into the star in the middle of Steve's chest. "Right, Steve – when I tell you to go keep Carter warm, I mean go sit next to her and try to put an arm around her shoulders, you know that, right?"

This was an area in which Steve's normally vivid imagination failed. He could envision Peggy well enough: her smile, the curves and planes of her face, the strength radiating through her winter uniform, but whenever he tried to insert himself into that picture, something didn't sit right. The shapes overlapped, the contrast was too high, the composition wrong. "Doesn't seem appropriate, really," he said, looking to the fire.

"Then she'll sock you one, you're a big boy, you can take it. Throw the girl a bone, will ya?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Somehow I don't think it'd work for me."

"Fair point. I'm gonna tell Carter to keep you warm next time, that oughta do the trick, but fair warning, I'm pretty sure she'll have you on your back and outta your pants before you stammer out a hello," Bucky said, and melted into the whirlwind of snow and darkness before Steve could even realize he needed to respond, probably by shoving his so-called best friend into a snow bank. Peggy could put him on his back as easily as breathing, all the strength he gained notwithstanding, and frankly if Bucky's plotting was involved, he would end up without his pants along the way. Goddamn it, Bucky, he thought blinking the glare of the fire out of his eyes, and trying not to blush.

He stood still for a long while, staring at the snowflakes melting into nothing the moment they floated into the orange light. He stood there until Sergeant Wroniecki and his squad wandered his way, sighing with gratitude at the sight of the exuberant fire.

"Captain," the man said, saluting smartly.

"Rough night?"

"Ain't had a night I wouldn't gladly finish by a fire," Wroniecki said. "I hear you're no longer using it?"

"It's all yours. There's still a few logs spare over by the tree, feel free to grab them. Sleep well." Steve accepted the nods and salutes and left, to catch at least a few hours of sleep, already tugging the gloves off his hands.

"Apple, sonny?" he heard, practically at the mouth of his tent. The young soldier dressed up in an old lady costume was standing before him, hand extended.

"Thank you, ma'am," Steve said, in all seriousness. "Had some not an hour ago. You should head to sleep, looks like the snow is picking up."

"Dank you," he croaked, and delivered such a dreadful attempt at a curtsy, Steve narrowly avoided choking on the icy air with laughter.

"God speed," Steve said, diving for his astonishingly cozy bunk, never mind the threadbare sleeping bag and narrow cot.

He woke a few hours later in a surprisingly jolly mood, considering he wasn't a fan of winter. The snowfall had turned into a proper snowstorm, with the wind picking up enough snow in enormous flurries to challenge the perception of up and down. He would never hear the end of this, Steve thought with a sigh, when he stepped out into the camp blanketed with white fluff to inspect his squad and ended up having to squint to make out their shapes. Even Peggy, flawless make-up notwithstanding, was covering up a yawn, which meant the guys were pretty much unconscious. Falsworth was leaning heavily on Dernier, who was surreptitiously using Morita's shoulder as a pillow, who in turn was trying to keep his eyes open, knowing what responsibility rested on his shoulders as the pillar of the whole structure. Jones was doing his best, but at four a.m. any self-respecting man should have just enough energy to roll over in bed, and so Dugan was jabbing Jones every now and then, to keep him from falling over.

And yet all of them, to a man, found enough energy within to glare at Bucky, who was whistling under his breath as he slid his handgun into the holster on his hip.

"That's not fucking fair," Morita grumbled around an enormous yawn. "If there was any justice in the world, he'd be the one falling over right now, the slavedriver."

"Aww, Jimmy," Bucky crooned. "Are you sleepy? Did the mattress not treat you kindly?"

"Fuck off."

Bucky laughed, a slow, budding laugh that vibrated in the air long after he fell silent. "Dum Dum, we're taking the jeep, kindly get it started."

They were piling up in the back of the sputtering car, all of them shivering, when the apple peddler wandered their way with his basket. Where he found the time, Steve wondered. At this hour tying his shoes was an effort he remembered from his skinny days, and this fellow had to manage an outfit which required tying of many laces, arranging petticoats and knotting a scarf against the cold, plus fitting everything under a bonnet. What the hell.

"Apple vor you?" the peddler crooned, and such was the magic of the accent that every last one of the Howling Commandos burst out laughing, sleep forgotten, and helped themselves, dropping the odd coins and cigarettes into the peddler's palm. "Und won vor you, sergeant," he added, extending a clawed hand in Bucky's direction. "Keep yoor strength, ya?"

Bucky took the proffered fruit absently, and threw a salute in thanks along with a chocolate bar. His lips, already wrapped around an unlit cigarette, widened in a grin as he slipped the perfectly round red apple into his satchel. "Good fella," he said once the jeep kicked into action and he managed an appropriate balance between covering his face with the scarf and keeping enough of it exposed so that he wouldn't set himself on fire while smoking. "Wonder which squad he's with, and what time they start their mornings, if he's got time to get his scarf into a knot this elaborate."

" _Comment est-ce qu’il arrive à être cohérent_?" Frenchie asked in disgust, burrowing under Gabe's arm for warmth. " _Qu’est-ce qu’ils mettent dans tes foutues cigarettes ricaines_?"

" _Aucune idée_ ," Gabe managed before a yawn took it all into the darkness of the night.

"Bucky is a morning person," Steve told them, though, looking at Bucky, he fully shared their misgivings about the content of his cigarettes.

"No, no." Monty sat up straight, a half-eaten apple in hand. "Sorry Cap, but no. Me, I am a morning person. I can roll out of bed at six in the morning and be perfectly happy, as long as I had my morning tea. This is four a.m., which makes Barnes an abomination from the pits of hell."

"Hush, I'm trying to keep that on the down low." Bucky wedged his shoulders between Gabe's and Jim's, curving his back into the unyielding side of the jeep, and grinned. "Although if you must, I will respond to Cthulu."

"Thank you, oh fallen one." Peggy was covering up a yawn and still the half-bow managed to come out as graceful. "You do us a great honor."

"Not bad." Bucky exhaled, letting the wind blow the smoke away, into the icy nothingness. "Not bad at all. Not quite correct, mind you, but not a bad guess. Hit me up after we get back, I've got homework for you."

Peggy shook her head and laughed. "How far are we going?"

Steve peers at the map he's got spread on his knees. "About two hour's drive to the crossroads, then we proceed on foot," he said, and tried to ignore the groans coming his way.

"C'mon ladies, this ain't a spa, no one promised it's gonna be lazing about till noon." Bucky rolled his eyes, but in the process caught Peggy's gaze. "Uh—sorry, ma'am."

"One of these days you will land yourself in a hospital, sergeant," Peggy told him sweetly. "Let's see you give lip to the nurses."

"I'll be good."

"See that you are."

The Commandos hooted and cheered; even Bucky's eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth, when Peggy let out a huff and turned to Steve with a small, private smile.

Of course, no power on earth could change the fact that it was, at the moment, just past half four a.m., and the enforced silence of their operation, once they passed the perimeter, was crucial. One by one the Howlies fell into a light doze, collapsing against one another in the tight confines of their transport. Let them sleep, Steve thought, turning to Dum Dum, who drove tirelessly on, listening for the faint instructions Steve was sending his way whenever the road curved.

It was going on six when the car stopped. There was still over an hour until sunrise, but even with the omnipresent cloud coverage the day already seemed to be overwhelmingly white. The storm gave way to a leisurely fall, very atmospheric; each of the flakes a perfectly formed six-pronged star, feathery-light and invulnerable to common physics, it would seem, as they scattered in flurries with Steve's every breath, instead of melting.

Hydra wouldn't even know they were here, Steve thought with a smile, looking down, where his footsteps were immediately covered by fresh layers of snow.

"Christ, why must it be so cold," Bucky muttered, sliding soundlessly out of the jeep and into the knee-high white fluff. "And who the fuck dragged all those pebbles into the goddamned jeep?"

"Yeah, 'fess up, fellas." Dugan swung out of the driver's seat just in time to ruffle the neatly combed hair on Bucky's head. "Who spilled the peas in the princess' seat?"

"Har fucking har, Dopey," Bucky muttered, peering into the side view mirrors to fix the worst of the damage. Steve wordlessly handed him a comb, ignoring the way Dugan's eyes lit up. So it was Dugan who kept stealing Bucky's combs, then. "Go see if your mustache's still with us, it looks a little dead."

"I'm just glad he's no longer chipper, even if I think he got his stories mixed up. At least he's no longer violating natural law." Gabe said to Steve, who had to agree. While an irritated Bucky was a sight recommended to no one, never, and making him sit motionless in freezing cold was a sure-fire way to trigger irritation, nature demanded her due, and irritation in the early morning balanced the universe.

At their side, Dernier nodded. "Amen," he said, proving once and for all his understanding of English wasn't as bad as he made it seem day-to-day.

"Let's move out." Steve shrugged his shoulders, affixed the shield to his back and checked his pistols. "We head to the crossroads and see if there's anything to follow from there. If not, we wait for a transport to provide that something. Bucky, I think that's as good as you're going to look today."

"I beg to differ," Bucky said, and to be fair, yeah, that final stroke made all the difference in the world. Empires would fall, Steve thought accepting his comb back and shoving it into his pocket. "Shows what you know."

"Questions?" Steve asked. "And only if they are unrelated to why I'm carrying a comb, please?"

There were none. One by one they disappeared into the morning twilight, slithering through the dense undergrowth, where they would leave no footprints that snow falling from the trees wouldn't cover. Steve went last, keeping an ear out for trouble, but at this hour there was nothing; only the faint rustling of wind, a few birds maybe, all smothered by the snow. It was peaceful. They made it to the crossroads in time to sense the presence of sunlight far on the horizon, masked by clouds and the mountaintops. They had time to spare before the sun gave the potential transport the signal to depart, giving them perhaps forty minutes of waiting.

Or perhaps not.

"Well done," Peggy told Steve in excitement when the two of them stepped onto the frozen road. There were tire tracks pressed straight into the earth and sand, under the protective ceiling formed by long branches of the six majestic pines which surrounded the patch of ground where the roads met.

Steve frowned at the evergreen umbrella and then grinned. "Look, they're tied together – have been tied together, and not that long ago," he said to Peggy. He could just barely make out twine among the needles. The knots kept the branches together, ensuring that the road remained invisible from above, yet the twine was still discernible as twine, not a crusted over ancient part of the living tree, and the branches strained to hold together. This happened recently, not more than a year ago, just in time for the strange shipments to start arriving in the area. "Looks like we have plenty to work with even without transport."

"Well done indeed." Peggy grinned wider. Together they turned back to the well-concealed groove, where Gabe was setting up his equipment, ready to make his preliminary report.

Except he wasn't setting up equipment. The radio was lying in shambles by a young pine, neglected, while Gabe and the rest of the Howlies were standing in a semi-circle around…

"C'mon, Barnes, it's not actually funny," Steve heard Morita growl.

"Bucky?" Steve's own mouth replied, without his conscious orders. Jim started, leapt to his feet and rejoined the silent circle of identical dismayed expressions, at the center of which was Bucky: pale as the snow he lay on, his lifeless fingers grasping for the blood-red apple which had tumbled to the ground.


	3. As Black as Night

A crisp "what the fuck?" spilled from Peggy's red lips, loud enough to frighten off a sparrow that'd perched on an overhead branch to fluff itself up for another busy day in the unforgiving cold.

"Uh," Dugan started saying, but after exchanging a helpless look with Gabe and Dernier didn't.

"He was fine a moment ago?" Morita volunteered, when it became obvious no help was incoming.

Steve's fists clenched automatically. He was angry all of sudden, angry enough to punch the first soul incautious enough to cross his path. It was a good thing his men knew him well enough to get out of the way. Steve dropped to his knees on Bucky's side and shook his shoulder, certain he'd feel resistance, that Bucky's hand would come up to stall him, certain that _this wasn't fucking happening_.

But there was no reaction. Bucky's body was limp under his hands, succumbing to the shaking like a rag doll would. Steve clenched his fists and shook again, trying to force the anger into his voice, lest it break, when he cried, "This is not funny, Bucky! Get up this minute!"

Nothing. Not a gasp, nor a moan; not even a breath. There was nothing but the soft flutter of snow, swirling down from the heavens, nothing in the world except the flecks of white settling in Bucky's dark hair, on his blue jacket, kissing his pale skin and melting there.

Peggy pulled him back by his collar, tugging Bucky's scarf out of the way, her own glove hanging from her mouth. Her fingertips wedged under Bucky's jaw and she went still, staring down at her exposed left wrist. In her left hand she was holding a knife, the blade hovering an inch or so over Bucky's lips. Steve had to remind himself to breathe, breathe, keep breathing, because there was mist on the shiny blade. He wasn't wishing it into existence, it was there.

"He's breathing fine," Peggy said curtly after about a minute, spitting the glove out into her lap. "But his pulse is a little slow. I can't see any blood," she added, looking around at the snow, brushing handfuls of it away from Bucky's body. With her forefinger and thumb she pinched his neck, and for a second Steve could swear his heart had spontaneously regressed to its natural, faulty state, because Bucky stirred – his fingers twitched, and his eyelashes fluttered. Not a second later, however, he settled back into motionlessness. "Has he been injured lately?" Peggy asked, pinning the Commandos with a glance.

"No," Dum Dum said immediately.

"Are you sure? Nothing he could have hidden—"

"He's smarter than that, ma'am." Morita fiddles with his rifle. "He wouldn't. And anyway, we actually got to shower properly last morning, so I can tell you for sure he was fine. I patted him down just now, there's no dart he got shot with, and no wound, either."

"Is there any chance he missed too many meals lately?"

"Sarge? No fucking way. He eats like a horse. Saw him scarf down his rations and an extra bar of chocolate he won in a game yesterday, and still go scamming for extras." Dugan was shaking his head, looking at the others for confirmation. "Jones, didn't he decimate your cookie stash?"

"Yup," Gabe said with a mournful sigh. "Asshole knows how to play poker. And those were the cookies my mom sent me, none of that weak army shit."

Peggy frowned, lifted Bucky's eyelid and peered into his vacant eye carefully. "Is he sleeping well?"

This warranted a conference among the Commandos, one conducted largely through shrugs and eye-rolls, until Dugan was once again speaking: "Didn't seem like he'd been sleeping much, no, but he wouldn't have collapsed due to lack of sleep, would he?"

"It happens. There's only so long you can go without sleep."

"No," Dugan said forcefully. "Carter – Bucky's no idiot. If he'd been so tired he ran the risk of fainting, he wouldn't have gone with us." By the time he finished speaking he was glaring at Peggy, as though her questions offended him personally. In a way perhaps they did: Dugan may have pulled no punches when Bucky was being an idiot, but he was also the first to get between him and the line of fire.

There was a reason he was Steve's favorite.

"I'm sorry for asking," she said, her voice as tender as her hands, "but there're only so many reasons why a grown man would just collapse—"

Steve saw her head turn minutely as she spoke and he heard her voice trail off. Her gaze focused and, as though it possessed gravity of its own, dragged the eyes of the others onto the apple in the snow.

The six of them watched her reach for it, lift it to her nose. There was nothing about it that seemed off: no specks of blackness, nothing but red skin wrapped around pale yellow insides. Yet they watched her scrape the juicy flesh with her teeth and lick them with a fair amount of trepidation. They all watched her frown, then stand up, sway and drop the fruit back into the snow. "I'm fine," she mumbled into Steve's shoulder, a minute or so later, struggling to keep her eyes open. "I'm fine. It's just a spell of dizziness."

"You barely touched it."

"Bucky took a good bite," she said grimly as Steve guided her to sit on a nearby root. "No question there, it's the apple. And whatever's in it has to be strong as hell." Peggy grabbed a fistful of snow and put it into her mouth, piece by piece, spitting now and then. Steve watched her forehead crease, felt her shudder, and remembered the winter around them.

From across the clearing he could no longer see the mist of Bucky's breath. Bucky, who was still lying in the snow where Peggy left him, with his head tipped back and throat exposed; Steve should be able to see him breathe. Steve crossed the clearing in three long leaps and bent over Bucky's prone body, listening for the faint whistle of breath with his heart in his throat. There it was; faint but palpable, moving the flurries of snowflakes that flowed too close to his pink lips. Somewhere underneath the blue jacket – and it was so blue, when the world was blindingly white – Bucky's heart was beating and his lungs were drawing breath. He was going to be fine, Steve told himself, brushing Bucky's hair away from his forehead the way he'd do it himself. He was going to be fine.

"Cap—" Gabe said, and his hand landed on Steve's shoulder.

"We're going back," Steve said. "We're going back _right now_ , Bucky needs help, we can't leave him like this. He needs help…"

"Jones, radio Philips. We need a doctor standing by. Get Stark, too, we need to know what's in the apple." Peggy tugged her gloves back on. "Steve, can you carry him?"

Steve nodded, too preoccupied to speak. Bucky's head fell back when he slid his hand under his shoulders and lifted. His head lolled back against Steve's upper arm, completely inert, baring his neck to the bite of frosty air. He could get sick, Steve thought in despair, even though Bucky only rarely got sick. Somehow the scarf didn't seem like protection enough, why wasn’t he wearing a hat?

"Good," Peggy was saying over his head. "Gabe, tell Philips to find the apple peddler, bring him in for questioning. Do it now."

Gabe threw a salute and within seconds the radio was set up and sputtering somewhere in the distance, far off with the rest of the world. Soon they would have help, Steve told himself. Soon they'd be back at camp, where there were doctors and blankets and hot tea. Gabe got the radio going, Steve could hear the first murmurs of foreign voices intruding on the silence.

Of course, that turned out not to matter at all, when a nearby explosion felled the seven of them into the snow, and a hail of bullets ensured they didn't rise, for fear of earning a few extra holes where no man or woman should have holes.

"Go west!" Steve yelled, springing off the ground, and set off running towards the source of the shooting, sending the shield flying in the same direction. A heartbeat passed by, then he heard a dull thump of vibranium hitting a tree, then another, and finally the clang of metal meeting metal. How he hoped it took someone's head off along the way. Not a good fucking time to engage me, he thought, gritting his teeth, rolling to avoid another hail of bullets. A sharp burst of gunfire on his left, followed by a cacophony of the clatter of copper against steel and the dull thump of bullets hitting wood alike, let him know Peggy had his back. An answering burst of fire from the other edge of the clearing signaled that the rest of the Commandos were up, too, bringing up the west flank, drawing fire away from the clearing. Steve let a grim smile turn his mouth. Time to go, he thought, and his heartrate picked up. Three, two, one and he was running; don't think, Steve, do. The stump is sturdy enough to take your weight, leap, whirl around the pine, grab the shield and roll, deflect a hail of bullets and _keep running_ at—

What the motherfucking shit is this? a part of him screamed, a part that sounded suspiciously like Bucky Barnes, aged sixteen, faced with a fight Steve had been goddamned sure neither of them would walk away from. They had, in the end, through a combination of playing dirty and being marginally smarter than the other guys, but Steve wasn't quite so proud he'd deny luck had lent them a helping hand.

He could only hope it would this time, too. Steve swerved from another burst of bullets, tripped and landed heavily in the snow, narrowly avoiding being impaled by something long, and sharp, and connected to a robotic arm. The arm was connected to a skeletal torso, at whose center there was a jar, of sorts, containing an odd, blue glow, surrounded by cables. The power source, Steve thought distantly, thinking to Stark's lectures. The power source is only as good as the wiring, he'd say often. Why expose the wires? Steve wondered, grasping the robotic arm and pulling, until he felt it penetrate the frozen ground below. With the seconds he bought for himself he rolled over his right shoulder and dove for his shield.

"Hydra has robots now?" Dugan exclaimed somewhere to Steve's left, breathing hard. "Why'd they stop shooting?" he asked, avoiding a direct swipe of a sharpened rod the other robot was wielding.

"They've machine guns, they need to reload," Steve said. Battle plans whirred through his head, and not soon enough: first, take the fight away from Bucky. They've made progress on that one, but they were still too close.  Gunfire was unpredictable. They needed to move, and move fast. The forest was not dense enough to provide sufficient protection.

Priority two, dismantle the robots. Take them apart with his bare hands, with his teeth if need be; he didn't have time for this. "Monty, go far to the left, Dum Dum, Jim take the far right," he yelled, already running. "Gabe, take the other one! Go for the cables!"

The things took their time to reload, but they worked quickly, and the spare magazines were tucked in the spaces between the thigh bones, for lack of a better designation. There were many, many rounds jammed into their steel sockets. Steve had only seconds to spare before another round, and with seven people to protect from stray bullets with only one shield, he would be stretched thin.

What he had on his side, however, was a squad that worked together better than any machine ever could. Monty swerved right immediately, without a word, running into the dense undergrowth, while Gabe and Dernier fell into a parallel path, concentrating fire on the mid-section of their robot, where the blue light shone brightest.

Steve focused on the empty hulk of metal before him, at the glow emanating from its joints, at the spot of bright blue in the middle. Getting too close might be ill-advised: anything that possessed this particular shade couldn't possibly be safe to hit with a projectile. On the other hand, Steve was in no mood to ask questions of demand answers, so, without much ado, he simply hurled his shield in the very center of it.

This proved to be both a success and a grievous error. The shield cracked the casing before returning to his hand, as Steve hoped it would, but the leaking light started to fluctuate and gain intensity, a sure sign all was not well.

"Steve, duck!" he heard Peggy yell, and saw her aim a handgun at the robot's midsection, and something about it clicked, something most easily condensed to "Peggy don't!" which he only got out once she'd already pressed the trigger.

"Take cover!" he managed to scream at no one and everyone simultaneously, diving for Peggy and throwing them both into a snow bank.

Then the world went white.

Steve lifted himself on shaking hands, blind, deaf, helpless; he felt a puff of breath on his cheek, smelled the perfume. Peggy. Peggy was breathing, Peggy was alive. He wasn't fully certain how he fared, but as starting points went, this one wasn't bad.

Simple tasks, he reminded himself. Am I in pain? he asked himself, moved his head from side to side. There was no dizziness. His hands moved when he willed them to, so did his feet. Steve tugged a glove off, felt around the snow, but there was no significant change in texture or temperature, nothing to indicate blood had been spilled. Peggy continued to breathe against his cheek, as good a sign as any to keep going, even if she didn't seem to be speaking, or even moving.

Slowly, slowly, Steve thought to himself through the mounting panic. Caution. There was no pain, and no ambush had followed the sudden blast of nothingness that struck him. Was the machine destroyed? One could only hope.

Peggy still hadn't moved. God, please, let her be okay, Steve thought frantically. Please, he begged the emptiness before him. If nothing else, let Peggy be okay.

The very next moment something struck his chest, then his face. He struck back blindly, but his ungloved fist met something soft, not metal and not flesh, something like felt, something like a—

A hat. A bowler hat.

"Dum Dum?" he asked, and a warm hand wrapped around his. "Is Peggy—"

There was a slight push, a whiff of cigarette smoke, the heavy brand that Jim favored, then a rough finger tapped his palm twice, pressed once, tapped another time, paused, tapped twice, paused again, then a press, tap, and a tap. Steve exhaled, it felt like, from the depths of his soul. "The others?"

WE WON. GABE FRENCHIE DOWN ALIVE. MONTY JEEP.

They got the other robot, then, but the explosion took their French-speaking duo out. This was… heartening. Good. They survived. Monty went for the Jeep, better. They needed to get out of here, ASAP, they needed help, they needed—

"Bucky?"

No tapping followed. Steve reached out blindly, until his hand closed around Dugan's shirt. "Bucky?" he asked again. Bucky had been unconscious. Bucky was down, in the snow, would a robot see him? Could they even see? Did they control the stray bullets, did they fire at the motionless body on the ground? "Bucky?!"

This time the touch was hesitant, slow, the letters, translated into gentle taps, fragile like the handwriting of an old lady.

GONE, Dugan signaled.

Gone? Steve felt his mouth flood, his brain go blank. Gone? "Gone?" he asked, without knowing for sure if he managed to draw enough breath for that one little word.

THIRD ROBOT, Dugan signaled, TOOK HIM.

"How—"

SORRY CAP.

" _That's not good enough_ —How could you let it?!"

A warm hand curled around his, another pushed him to the ground, to the snow, and he went, a prayer on his lips, because they took Bucky, whoever send the robots took Bucky, and Dugan saw it happen and did nothing. They took Bucky.

Bucky, he thought, and the world went just a little more white.

* * *

 

There was a slightly less white shape hovering in the infinite whiteness above him, the shape of a mushroom that smelled of Lucky Strikes and pine, humming a song he should really know by now, even if he desperately didn't want to. "Dum Dum," Steve managed. "Stop singing."

The answer came like a whisper echoing through a valley, faint and fragile, but discernible, tinged with laughter and relief. "Welcome back, Cap."

"Peggy? Jones and Dernier?"

"Morita reckons they'll be waking up soon," another echo whispered. Monty, that had to be him. Steve felt around and someone was sleeping next to him, someone who smelled faintly of perfume and lipstick. Peggy. She was right there, next to him, breathing softly. Steve curled his hand around hers and took a deep breath of the stale air.

"Where are we?" he asked, frowning when the stench of mushrooms filled his nose.

The wind whistled for a while, unburdened with words. "Still in the forest, Cap. The jeep had an accident," Dugan's voice said eventually, hesitant to deliver the news.

"What?"

Monty must have leaned closer, because his voice was suddenly clear in Steve's ears, no longer just a series of notes in the static, but a strong leading tune. "It's out of petrol. Someone was clever enough to drill a small hole in the tank, so we bled ourselves dry along the way. We're stranded."

"How—"

"I hate to be the one to yell 'trap'," Dugan said, "But it looks to me like we may have walked into a fucking trap. And a damn good one, too."

"Bucky—"

"Still gone, Cap."

"We gotta find him."

"We will," Dugan said, and for a moment his entire weight rested on Steve's shoulder, drove him back into the ground, anchored him there. The shadow above him gained definition, sharp edges of flesh and mustache against the vast emptiness. "Swear to all that's holy, Cap, we won't back down an inch till we get Jimmy back safe and sound. But we can't do shit dragging your heavy ass along, so you need to get some rest and sleep it off."

"Dum Dum—"

"With utmost respect, sir, stay the fuck down. We'll wake you when it's your turn to keep watch." He huffed something that couldn't have been a compliment and bent low over Steve. "You won't help him like this," Dugan whispered. "He'd be the first to tell you that. Rest."

Steve let his unseeing eyes close, feeling unfairly comfortable despite the gnawing fear in his gut. They needed to regroup, he understood that. They needed to know what they were up against. Dugan was right. He was right, Steve told himself again and again. Dugan was sensible when he needed to be; Dugan knew when to abstain from a fight. It was no wonder he and Bucky got along so well. No wonder they were close.

Steve swallowed a protest, and the bitter jealousy that followed. He wasn't great at staying down. He wasn't even that great at sensible, he might have been blind, but he wasn't that blind. He was rash, and foolish, and sometimes he charged in trusting his luck more than common sense. He wasn't so righteous he didn't realize that. Bucky certainly never let him forget he was an idiot, and look where that got them. Steve grit his teeth, made one last attempt at sitting up, but even his body had limits, and his hand was still tangled with Peggy's.

Peggy, too, would tell him he needed to rest, and that he was of no help to anyone when he couldn't even see. Peggy would know what to do. She'd make it better. He fell asleep clutching her hand, repeating those words over and over in his head. It was going to be fine.

When he woke the world was a dim, blueish grey, enough to make out the shapes of things, in a way that Steve found disturbingly familiar. This was almost like Brooklyn in the fog, the fire escape high above the street, Bucky's warmth against his side. But that wasn't right, he should be in the snow somewhere in a Bavarian forest, and so the warmth was out of place, the warmth was suspect. More importantly, something was rustling behind his back. "Fuck," that something said, and with a sense of profound relief Steve recognized Gabe's voice, murky and slurred though it was. "Fucking hell, I can't see!"

"Gabe?" he asked, discovering in the process that he was thirsty and ravenously hungry. "Gabe!"

There was no reaction. Gabe continued to thrash around, and Steve remembered waking like this, blind and deaf to the world, nose full of mushrooms and rotten tree bark. He needed to let him know they were safe. Steve reached out, groping for something that wasn't twigs or dry leaves, found Gabe's hand and squeezed.

"Who's there?"

CAP, Steve signaled, then added, SNAFU. No need for details at this juncture. SLEEP.

"We safe?"

Who could tell? But Steve tapped the requisite long-short-long-long and left it at that. No, they weren't safe. Not even close. But there was nothing he could do right now.

Gabe's breathing evened out, and Steve did his best to follow suit. Peggy was still at his side, breathing softly, and it was a relief to slip back into the blank nothingness, almost, without having to fight it at every turn. He couldn't tell how much time had passed, but when he opened his eyes again the world was a uniform black, which hopefully meant it was because the night had fallen, and not a recurrence of the blindness.

There was more rustling behind him and Gabe spoke, "Something smells nice in here, and it sure as fuck ain't me. Carter?"

A faint murmur responded, not quite a word, but close, and Gabe settled, so his hearing was back. Peggy, too, was on her way, if she reacted to his voice. One could only hope the third breath Steve could hear was Dernier, and that he wasn't far off from the land of the conscious, either. Steve sat up carefully, portioning his strength, but he was there, his body able enough to take another breath without sputtering, his back strong enough to support a backflip or two. Steve slid out of their cozy nook, pushing a makeshift wall of twigs and frozen foliage, arranged on his own shield, out of the way, and the snow outside nearly blinded him with its blazing whiteness. "What was that?" Gabe asked, fighting his way out from, Steve could see now, under Peggy and Dernier. The four of them were piled into a groove under an old tree, buried in old leaves and tree bark. That would explain the stench of mushrooms, at least, or the surprising warmth that had Steve wondering throughout the night.

"It's me," Steve said quietly, blinking the shock of whiteness – get it together, Rogers, it's the middle of the night, it's not that white – out of his eyes. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you when it's your turn to keep watch."

"Hope it takes a spell," Gabe managed, before letting his head fall back.

Steve pondered not getting out – it was the middle of winter, all scraps of heat had to be precious – but right now he couldn't take another minute of not knowing. He crawled out into the snow, and hey, the world was less black and white now. The sky was clear, and black as anything, while the stars swirled across it in endless loops, strangely colorful, like bursts of fireworks on his birthday. The thought made him dizzy: perhaps he wasn't ready for a fight yet, stars weren't actually supposed to swirl.

When the world stopped spinning around his head, he saw that there was a spot of orange in the vicinity, one this war had taught him promised fire. Steve straightened his back and walked towards it, stumbling on a couple of roots and covering it up soon as he could, in case this was another trap, in case it wasn't what he thought, in case—

"Easy, Cap," Dugan said, appearing suddenly at his elbow. "Sit down. Have a piece of chocolate. You see okay? Hear me fine?"

"Yes. I think so. What happened? Where are the others?"

"Monty and Jim are walking the perimeter, setting up trip wires. As for what happened… The exploding robots happened. We don't know what it was, exactly. Knocked out all of us, actually, save Monty, but me and Jim, we got it together in a couple of minutes. He thinks it's to do with distance. You and Carter were closest, so it fucked you up the most."

"Is Peggy—"

"Jim says there doesn't seem to be any actual damage, it just shorts you out. The robots are still there." He pointed somewhere to the right, where Steve could just make out two hulking, skeletal shapes. "Although he thinks your heart might have actually stopped. Not Carter's," Dugan added quickly, before something vital in Steve could stop working again, "you managed to shield her from the worst of it. Lucky you, supersoldier, all it took was a good whump and you were back in the land of the living," he finished with clear admiration in his voice. "Personally, I think he was overreacting."

Steve couldn't help but smile at that. "Yeah. Staying down's not my strong suit. What about Monty?"

"His lordship says he fell into a hole and didn't dig himself out until the robots were down. I know, right?"

"Dugan…"

"He saw one of those things pick Sarge up," Dum Dum continued, all humor drained, his voice hushed. "He wasn't close enough, to do a fucking thing. The blast didn't knock him out, but it did mess him up. Couldn't move all that great and all, you know the feeling."

"Captain?" The man himself. Steve turned to Falsworth, who collapsed onto a sturdy branch next to the fire.

"You saw them take Bucky?" Steve asked, and God, let it not be judgement he heard coming out of his throat. They couldn't have done a thing.

Monty gave a tight nod, avoiding his eyes. "It was exactly like Dum Dum said: a robot ambled up and picked Sarge up from the snow like he weighed nothing. It was careful though. Wasn't out to damage, I wager. It was different from the exploding ones, too: there was nothing skeletal about it, every limb was covered up and there was barely any light to it, save what was visible around the joints."

"So Bucky's alive," Steve breathed, resting his shaking hands on his thighs. Bucky was alive. They wouldn't have taken him if they were going to kill him.

"If he's not, it was the single most incompetent military operation I have ever heard of."

"Be fair, Monty," Dugan said, poking at the fire with a stick. "They did knock us out."

"Well, what of it? We're still alive."

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

"I despise incompetence," Monty said haughtily, prompting Dugan to catch Steve's eye and roll his eyes hard enough for his mustache to twitch.

"Did those robots seem a little incomplete to you?" Steve asked. When the other two merely looked at him blankly, he strived to explain the feeling he couldn't shake ever since the attack. "I'm no engineer, but they could have done more damage if they didn't explode. I could probably handle one, maybe, if I had a grenade and someone to distract it, with two it would have been difficult, they shook bullets off. They exploded way too easily for something that was supposed to go into combat."

"You're thinking they weren't meant to kill us?" Monty frowned, staring at the fire. "It would explain why we're still alive, but at the same time it really wouldn't."

"I think they were here to explode. And I think—" Steve stared off into the distance, his mind running through the memory of the fight, pulling at it, searching for clues. "I think they were intended to kill us, but that they were also a test run."

"Wouldn't they send backup?" Monty asked immediately. "If it was a weapons' test, then it'd make sense to have backup to monitor what's going on."

"Dugan said my heart stopped. I was perhaps twenty feet away when it went off, and I'm hard to kill. Thing like that, it'd be hard to test without an enormous death toll. So perhaps they didn't test it fully. Maybe they didn't realize how limited the range would be. Maybe they think it's more powerful than it actually is. Hydra might not be careful with the lives of their men, but they aren't throwing them away, either, and putting those things in battle would take out people on both sides."

Falsworth nodded. "Makes sense. What about Sarge?"

Steve faltered and looked at the tiny fire, concealed by a makeshift grill. "I don't know."

"Can't say exactly what's been happening in Zola's little isolation ward," Dugan said slowly, "but we did see some of them as came out the other end, that one time. You remember, Monty? They, uh. Some nights I try to sleep hanging over the cot, in case I throw up in my sleep. Fact is, it'd happened once or twice. And then there was Jimmy-boy, pretty as a picture, if a little singed, when you both got out."

Steve would have loved to blame the dryness of his mouth on the explosion, even though he knew it couldn't have been that. Not anymore. None of the Commandos spoke of what happened in the factory, Bucky least of all. After the initial debriefing their ranks had closed so tight even Steve had trouble getting near. "He was pretty out of it when I found him," he volunteered, thinking of the delirious repetition of name, rank and number. Bucky had been in pain. Bucky had been hurting, Bucky had been on the edge of delirium.

"But he walked it off," Dugan was saying. "We met up again soon after you first dropped from the ceiling, right? What was it, couldn't have been an hour?"

"Thereabouts, yeah."

"None of the other poor bastards even got the chance. So… Maybe that's why," Dum Dum said gently, looking at Steve, and Monty nodded.

Steve stared at the grill, which looked suspiciously like it belonged on a jeep, at the sizzling rabbit-shaped hunk of meat roasting there. "You think Zola is behind this."

"There's no escaping the fact that either it was the craziest fucking coincidence, or Bucky was the target from the beginning." Monty looked Steve in the eye. "You know it's a fair bet that Zola's out looking for him."

Steve closed his eyes. No, they couldn't escape either of those things. "But why?"

"Beats me," Monty said, but even Steve, out of it and feeling like a hollowed out building, through which every scrap of sound echoed, could think of several reasons, one worse than the last. "Rabbit? Morita's gone foraging for seasoning, but I think he's being too picky."

Dum Dum muttered something Steve pretended very hard not to catch, and by the time Morita got back with a meagre handful of frozen weeds he was well on his way to ignoring the world around him altogether, save for when some of the contested meat was offered for his consumption.

Morita had won that argument, Steve decided privately some time later, licking the fat from his fingers, while refusing to take a side. It might have been a first time in his life, he thought with what little humor he had at his disposal. What a monumental occasion, and you are missing it, he thought at the starry sky, while at his side Monty and Jim debated the necessities of war versus pleasures of the palate. He should silence them, probably, but the noise helped his mind steer clear of the dark pits of horror it was conjuring every time a twig snapped in the distance. He was grateful for it, as grateful as he was for the hot food filling his belly, even if, much like the food, it couldn't fill the gnawing emptiness at his side.

* * *

 

Over the next few hours Peggy, Gabe and Dernier clawed their way out of the strange, white place that the blue discharge sent them to, so dawn found the Howling Commandos gathered around the remnants of a fire, chewing on leftover rabbit meat and whatever rations they managed to pool together. "What's the plan, Cap?" Gabe asked on Dernier's behalf when the sun climbed high enough to illuminate their makeshift campsite.

"We're going after Bucky."

"Well, duh," Gabe and Dernier said at the same time, going as far as rolling their eyes in unison, a gesture no doubt meant to convey contempt, which nonetheless warmed Steve to the core. "I meant specifically."

That was the trouble. "We think it might have been Zola," Steve said. "Bucky lived through his experiments once. Maybe Zola started something he didn't get to finish."

"That's grim."

"I don't think they went far," Steve said firmly, looking back at the immobile robots. Dugan would have made sure they were immobile, and he mentioned setting up trip-wires, of which Steve was sure they hadn't brought any. "Those things, whatever they actually were, didn't look like they were built for long-distance travel, so there has to be a base nearby. I bet they took Bucky back there."

"It's been almost twenty-four hours," Monty said, doubtfully. A whole day was a long time, Steve knew that.

"Getting out of here would take time." Dugan picked at the scraps of meat on the rabbit bone and licked his fingers. "It's not a good place for a transport hub, so I don't think they're equipped to move shipments at will. Tricky roads, snowfall, take your pick. We have a good chance of catching up."

"On foot?"

"What choice do we have?" Steve snapped. With the radio carefully stomped into a pile of shards, the base and backup almost a hundred miles away, forward was the only reasonable option, not that Steve was in a reasonable frame of mind, nor planned to build one. Luckily for him, no one around was lining up with wooden planks, and if Peggy's set expression was anything to go by, her frame of mind bordered on the abstract. It was almost funny, that if he closed his eyes he could envision Bucky banging his head against a flat surface. "Idiots, the lot of you," he could imagine him saying. "Can't take on the whole of the goddamned Nazi party on your lonesome, Stevie, that's a whole lotta assholes to go through. Pick your fucking battles and learn what backup means, 's not that big a word, you great big lug."

Goddamn it, Bucky, Steve thought and clenched his fists.

By midday they had left the little grove behind, somewhere down the shadowed road heading east. Steve lead the way with the compass in one hand and the map in the other, marking off potential ambush points, Peggy shadowing him with a machine gun at the ready. "We'll find him," she said when they were setting out, her hands closing around his for a moment.

"I know," he said, squeezing back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative chapter title: "you will pry my damsel-in-distress!Bucky headcanons out of my cold dead hands."


	4. As Red as Blood

The ravine was narrow enough to be easily dismissed as a potential entry point to wherever it led, considering that only a couple of felled trees could block it entirely. It was narrow enough, in fact, to pose problems for corpulent individuals. Defending the passage from attackers would require only one man and a limited ammunition supply, and he would have a dozen places in which to position himself so ensure maximal coverage and minimal visibility.

Even then it would only matter if anyone cared to defend it at all, because the ravine was hidden. Its presence was indicated on only one of the maps in Steve's possession, and discovering the entrance required a thorough investigation of a seemingly impenetrable wall of rock. Steve had chosen to trust the map, and, although natural rock formations weren't his preferred medium, any semi-decent artist would notice the shadows' interplay on the face of the rock, were there should be none. The discovery was heartening; the map that indicated the possibility was also the same one on which the building had been marked down.

They had their secret way in, one that would allow them to move at speed. The ravine followed a stream down and north-east, side-by-side with the road, and if the map was accurate, the ends of both coincided. The downside was that they couldn't see or hear the road, which made the choice of path a gamble: the ravine allowed them to move fast, faster than they would be able to move alongside the potentially monitored road, but at a cost of not having eyes on the transport route. Should Hydra transport something, they would be none the wiser. They could arrive at an empty facility, too late to do anything, too late to follow, even.

Steve came close to flipping a coin, but in the end speed won; they had little to gain by stalling and observing the road. No one was foolish enough to suggest to Steve they ought to bide their time, and with good reason. They had not nearly enough firepower to challenge armed transports: their sole advantage was speed and silence. Or, as Bucky would've said, they had not nearly enough patience to crawl their way home, and there was truth to that as well. Steve was not famous for his ability to stay still and, if they moved quickly enough, Steve wouldn't have time to exercise his patience.

How Bucky would mock him if he heard that line of thought. Steve could almost hear his voice: "hard to believe there's a muscle in that miracle of modern science that you didn't try exercising yet, but hey—at least that means I still have a job." Then he'd smirk, light up a cigarette, settle on a rock, with his legs crossed at the ankles, and refuse to budge until Steve sat down and made his excuses.

Christ Almighty, Steve thought, blinking back the sting of frost out of his eyes. How can an absence take up so much fucking space?

"Steve?"

He turned his head. "Peggy?"

"You stopped," she said. "Is everything okay?"

He didn't even notice.

"Not the time for thinking, soldier," she told him kindly. "Move."

Steve nodded. Steve moved. He didn't stop again, not when a fallen tree necessitated a climb halfway up the rock walls, not when the stream became, briefly, a round pool, dark and smooth like a mirror. He walked, climbed and slid his way through the ravine, until they reached the very end of it, and then he stopped.

And he stared.

"Don't say it," were his first words one everyone had a chance to see lay at the end of their journey.

"But—"

"Don't."

"But—"

"Dugan!"

"But, Cap!"

"I will tell Bucky you said it and I will stand back while he murders you."

The only word that could adequately describe the sound that came out of Dugan's mouth was a whine. No, Steve couldn't blame him. It was obvious and it was terrifying in its perfection, and if his heart wasn't hammering a hundred miles per minute, if Bucky were beside him and they were rescuing anyone else, he would have been the first to voice the thought that he knew was rattling through every head. "Holy shit," he let Bucky say in the privacy of his mind, picturing the gleam in his bright eyes and the flecks of ice in his hair, "we are in a fucking fairy-tale."

They were all thinking the exact same thing, and that was because the ravine opened into a narrow valley, which broadened to the east, sloping gently around a calm lake, and to the west was shielded by tree-covered mountains. At the narrow end, right in its focal point, there was a castle Steve would be hard-pressed to call real if presented with a photograph. This was the kind of castle he knew from picture-books and cartoons, a building raised from the ground by imagination and with aid of the fäe folk, not manpower and engineering. It wasn't very big, not that he was anything close to an expert, but it had all the hallmarks every American would look for in a castle: spires, gutters, pointy towers – well, one tower – tall, narrow windows and a drawbridge over a moat.

"It's very picturesque," Peggy said, as though this was merely a frozen lake overlooked by trees in the fall, but then she was British. Steve assumed it was impossible to take a walk without tripping over ancient ruins in Britain, but he'd still like to respectfully disagree. This was more than a picture: this was an experience, and if the occasion was any less fraught Steve would gladly take a moment to study the view in detail, or better yet, commit it to eggshell cardboard with the fancy watercolors he had never been able to afford. He could paint the picture and hang it on the wall, so that he could watch Bucky scowl at it every single morning on his way to the bathroom mirror.

"It will be a nightmare to get into," Peggy continued meanwhile.

"You got any experience storming castles, Carter?" Gabe asked, eyebrows halfway up his forehead.

"I know they're built for war." She crossed her arms over the gun she carried and studied the building carefully. "This one looks old, but no less sturdy for it. It might not be in the best shape, but it's not a ruin, either. Look, there's only one gate, and the whole thing is small enough that a handful of men could defend it for a decade, given adequate provisions."

"We have grenades," Steve said, shocking himself with the even tone of his voice. What a surprise it was to find a well of serenity somewhere at the center of his turbulent musings. "We are getting inside, even if we have to carve a way in."

"Steve, the walls could be several feet thick, we need to pause and think about it. A grenade will not be enough. Castles were built to withstand cannon fire."

Dernier, sensing his moment had come, belted out a long tirade in French. He swore, he described and he gesticulated, he even rhymed! It had been a speech for the ages, if the ages cared for the practical applications of explosives. Yet all his efforts were lost on the squad, as Gabe's summary of the impassioned speech was nothing but a short quip: "with what we have, we might be able to get a mouse in."

Steve couldn't blame Dernier for the look of sheer betrayal that crossed his face. What he managed to acquire of French suggested that was a speech worthy of immortalization, and here it fell on deaf ears.

" _Dilettante_ ," Dernie said simply, and sat heavily on a rock.

"Fix him," Steve told Game without taking his eyes off the stone walls shaded by pines. "We will need explosives."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You're the poetry expert, isn't there a sonnet about nitroglycerine?"

Gabe groaned, but within the minute he had Dernier opening back up, possibly with the promise of more grenades when they got back to the camp. Frenchie was easy to please. His assessment of the situation had, unfortunately, remained fixed: carving their way in wasn't going to happen.

Alright, then. If there was no way to create an entrance, they would have to use one of those already present. "I have an idea," Steve said darkly, eyes focused, and because Bucky wasn't here, there was no one to say "oh fuck no."

"Let's hear it," Peggy said instead, and Steve explained. If perhaps there was a moment of silence to acknowledge the desperate idiocy of this plan, it was drowned out by the much louder and thicker roar of equally silent approval.

Mostly silent.

"Ten cigarettes say Sarge's just keeled over with a heart attack, wherever he is," Dugan said. "God bless his poor soul."

"I vote we tell Sarge they all committed spontaneous suicide and left the door open," Gabe translated for Dernier, when the plan was explained to him. It seemed an accurate translation, but for the disappointment that even those who didn't speak French sensed permeating Dernier's words whenever he was denied his explosions.

"'s basically the truth, anyway," Dugan said, scratching his head under the hat. "Broadly speaking. Their own goddamned fault for not learning."

The plan was, quite simply this: Steve would climb the stone wall, balancing on knives and good intentions, and, once inside, would use whatever explosives would be at hand to open the gates so that they stay open, for as long as they needed them to. To be fair to common sense the plan also allowed for a detour quest aimed at finding rope, in order to make sure Captain America didn't have to wreak havoc all on his own. Steve rather hoped there would be no rope.

There was one downside to this plan, and that was the light. Steve found himself abhorring the presence of sunlight, despite the very attractive landscape it illuminated presently. There were patrols in the valley, he wasn't quite so blind as to ignore that. They couldn't risk anything ostentatious and visible, and Captain America climbing the wall of a fucking castle would be both. Fortunately, soon the sky became clouded and snow started falling again, spiraling down in clusters, covering up their tracks, seemingly covering up the sound as well, until the whole world was reduced to the inside of a feather down.

Even with the cloud coverage, however, the dusk was slow to come. By the time the sun began to touch the surrounding mountains, turning the otherwise peaceful lake into a pool of molten gold, Steve had the whole of the Howling Commandos practically sitting on him, lest he abandon even the pretense of caring about safety and storm the castle walls all by himself.

"Steve," Peggy said, tracking the sun's descent with a practiced eye. Only minutes now. Seconds. The sun was only half-visible. "Steve, no," she said again. "It will still be too bright. We need to wait."

"Wait?" Steve turned to face her, eager for an explanation or possibly a direct translation. It would have been one of those British things Peggy sometimes said that no one but Monty understood. Yes, it had to be. Why would she suggest delay?

Far beyond, on the hill, the sun slipped a fraction of an inch further down, low enough that he could make out the individual branches of the pines directly in front of it.

"We need to wait for the night," she continued.

"Sun's setting."

"Sun won't set for another half an hour."

"It's almost gone now." The shadows of the pines climbed the castle walls, swallowing up the flanks and the crenellations, creeping up towards the bright spot in the tower window.

"Steve!"

Luckily for them both, that was the moment when Gabe let out a whoop of delight. "I got the radio going," he said, turning towards Steve. "The antenna's busted, so the range is shit, but it's working."

"Can you pick up anything? Anything at all?"

Gabe pressed the receiver against his ear and closed his eyes, manipulating the cracked dial. His lips moved soundlessly, even though to Steve's ears there was nothing but static. Eventually he let the noise die out and turned to Steve with a grim expression. "I think—" he began, then reconsidered. "You gotta remember, Cap, this shit is busted. I can't guarantee this is in any way reliable. I could be getting something random that's bouncing off of those hills."

"What did you hear?"

"Bits and pieces, really, it's not—"

"Jones!"

"I heard the name Zola. And… something that could be 'transport the American'." Gabe looked down, fists clenched. "I think I heard something about a reward. Money was mentioned, certainly. Money and trucks."

"That's good," Peggy's voice came through the fog, piercing through the nothingness with a single ray of brittle light. "Steve, this is _good news_."

He stared at her with unseeing eyes.

"This means he's still in there. If they're discussing transport, it means Bucky is still here. _He is still here_."

Steve shook his head slowly, from side to side. The fog slushed, tumbled, filled his lungs with lead and weight, but the sunshine was insistent, fierce, victorious. "He's still here," Steve repeated, sounding the words out. They sounded true enough. They felt true enough. "Yes."

They were true, Steve told the world and willed it to listen. The world would listen.

Far over the mountains the sun set and, under the cover of darkness, Steve crept to the stone wall at long last, armed with a couple of knives he prayed he wouldn't have to use and good intentions. Luckily for him, it turned out that the ancient bricklayers did a good enough job that their descendants chose to trust in their expertise and not reinforce the sides with smooth concrete. Thus, with a great deal of effort, he could find enough purchase between the stones to support his fingers and toes. It was an uneven climb: sometimes he needed to go sideways, sometimes he needed to backtrack, and with no light to guide him he could only see about three feet ahead. He could barely judge the progress, but for the passage of time, and maybe the distance from the looming shadow of the jagged battlements overhead. The final five feet of the wall protruded from the rest of it, rendering him invisible from above, at a price. He had no concrete plans for getting over that obstacle.

Bucky would despair, Steve thought and he could swear that for a moment the fairly benign snowfall turned into a vicious storm, digging pins into the scant inches of his exposed skin. What if they were too late? What if Bucky wasn't here at all?

_What if they were too late_?

"Steve?" he heard Peggy whisper from below, and that was enough, almost, to dispel the storm.

"All good," he hissed back and continued his torturously slow climb. Small movements, he reminded himself. Move only as far as absolutely necessary. Feel each grip, make it certain, make it firm.

His hand grasped a ledge. Steve froze. His boots were wedged into cracks barely wide enough to hold cockroaches, he was hanging off another brick by the tips of his fingers, and here was a ledge. Hardly believing his luck, he moved towards it, taking care to stay out of sight, in case it was a window, until he was high enough to chance a look inside.

It took another few minutes before he was level with the unexpected bit of architecture and he could see now that it was a window, one he failed to spot from their hiding place in the ravine, because it was hidden in the tower's shadow. Not that it needed much hiding: it was no wider than perhaps fifteen inches, which made it just wide enough for him to fit, if he really tried, were it not for the fact that it was protected by iron bars.

Steve considered. He could probably rip them out. But would the noise alert someone? The room beyond was dark, hopefully unoccupied, but who knew where the nearest soldier was stationed, how far the sound would carry. Still, this was a window, a sure way inside. Safer, certainly, than trying to climb the battlements while assaulted by snow.

Steve braced himself against the wall, holding on to one of the iron bars, and tore another out of its stone bed, then listened, straining for the merest hints of sound that weren't caused by the wind.

There was nothing. Encouraged, he continued until only the window pane stood in his way, and even that gave easily. He waited for a gust of wind to break it, to minimize the noise, but no one came running, no one disturbed the darkness and silence of the room beyond.

A minute or so later Steve found himself stuck in the narrow window.

"Fuck," he muttered to no one in particular. "Fuck."

He should have taken the goddamned shield off first, why didn't he think of the shield? Steve would have gladly slammed his head against a hard surface, if his head wasn't suspended at least three inches from the nearest available surface. His knee made contact with the parapet outside with enough force to send a jolt up his spine. Steve groaned. Why would he think for a second he could fit through such a small window, now that he could barely fit in a regular-sized door?

Motherfucking piece of shit.

He heard Peggy's voice again, calling his name, and something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger delivered from under a mustache. The faint reflections on the shards of the glass spilled on the floor told him the moon showed its face, however briefly, and therefore his Commandos could see his legs kicking at the air helplessly, trying to gain enough momentum to free himself without the leverage he couldn't seem to find.

It was really fortunate that Bucky wasn't down there, because Steve would never, ever live this down. He could order the squad to shut up and they would listen, but Bucky? Steve could pull all the rank in the world, he could get generals and admirals to fly in from Washington for the sole purpose of disciplining that sneaky fuck, and the image would still magically end up imprinted on Steve's gravestone.

Goddamn it, Bucky.

Whether it was the thought of Bucky sniggering at him until the Judgement Day, or Peggy biting her lip to stop herself from laughing (and Steve could picture that exactly, her painted lips thinning into a red line, while the mirth poured out of her warm eyes in flecks of spiraling gold, a picture ripe with the richest colors oils had to offer), with one last heave he managed to push hard enough to tumble into the room, head-first.

Of course the goddamned frame was still stuck around his shoulders. Thankfully, breaking it apart was a lot easier without the stone walls holding it in place. Steve breathed out and rolled his shoulders, before taking stock of where he was, and when he did he couldn't help but grin. A heavy shelf occupied an entire wall opposite the window, and on the shelf there were neat piles of dusty curtains. Steve took one off its shelf and nearly staggered under the weight of the brocade. It took him close to an hour, but with a little braiding and twisting he managed to wreathe a rope with broad strips of the fabric, a rope strong enough to take his own weight. He lowered it out the window and within minutes his had his squad at his side and the seven of them were sneaking out the door into a dimply lit and curiously cold corridor.

They headed east. The corridor took them several steps down and back outside, which explained the temperature. They were standing on a terrace surrounding a courtyard, one that Steve noted, with his heart in his throat, held not only a couple of trucks – thankfully empty – but no less than five of the skeletal robots, as well as several more unfamiliar ones. He halted their progress immediately, gestured for the squad to keep behind him, but Monty was already inching forward, to peer at the state of matters below, the rest of the Commandos behind him.

"That's a lot of those robots," Morita said as soon as he got a glimpse at the happenings below. "And a lot of open space. If even one of them goes off in the middle, we're all dead. Even up here it might knock us out."

"Most of them look more like the other one, the one that didn't explode." Monty said grimly. "The plating looks different, there's less of the blue glow and—" his voice caught and he slithered closer to the banister, out of Steve's sight.

"Monty?"

"It's armor," he continued breathlessly. "There's a man inside it. It's armor, not a robot."

"An armor?" Steve went to his side immediately. Down below a man was stepping into the robot, wedging his shoulders into a harness there and grasping at controls. "How is that useful, it can barely move!" That wasn't strictly true, however. It moved well enough. Not very quickly, but it moved, and granted whoever was inside considerable strength, considering one of the men was lifting a full crate and placing it effortlessly on the back of the truck.

"But whoever's inside must be protected against the bombs," Monty said. "The one that took Sarge looked exactly like one of those, and it wasn't hiding when the others blew up. If they unleash those on an army, it'd be easy pickings, even if the armor can't move with any kind of precision. It's heavy and it can take a lot of fire before it goes out. All it really needs is to step on someone's head. You said it yourself: they can do a lot more damage if they don't explode."

It took all of Steve's willpower not to swear, and he had a really good, meaty curse lined up for the occasion. Unfortunately it was one that required volume as well. "We need to destroy them," he said instead.

"I agree."

Steve clenched his eyes shut. They couldn't let those things get out of here. Not for anything. What were the odds they even had time until morning? The truck was being packed right now. Chances were it was set to leave at daybreak, but they couldn't take that chance.

"I'll take Jim, Gabe and Jacques. We'll get it done," Monty continued, his voice unnaturally gentle. "I've got a plan, Cap. Should go quick and be a distraction, to boot. You go rescue the princess."

"Thank you," Steve whispered.

"Oh, and Cap?"

"Yes?"

"Don't tell Sarge I called him a princess."

"My lips are sealed." Steve took a long look at the courtyard. "Give us an hour to find Bucky, first," he said. "Then move. They can't leave here."

Monty grinned and saluted, before signaling his pick of men to join him. Steve, followed by Peggy and Dum Dum, ducked into a niche around a heavy oaken door, one that hid a narrow corridor.

"Shouldn't we be heading to the tower?" Dugan asked, when they paused at a window, from which there was either the way towards the eastern corner of the building or further in.

"Why the tower?" Peggy checked her pistol, loosely held around her hip and frowned.

"Dunno, just seemed appropriate." Dum Dum grinned, bright and cheery, an expression the situation emphatically did not warrant. "Ya know. 'S where you'd typically find a sleeping princess, right?"

"This will stop being funny eventually," Steve warned. "And I promise if you say that where he can hear you, I won't get in the way."

"Nah, I'm not worried." Dum Dum hefted his rifle higher and Steve started. This was Bucky's rifle he carried, along with his own, strung over his shoulder. Bucky's satchel was swinging against his hip, heavy with extra ammo and a grenade he probably should even have. Steve certainly ordered him to stop carrying them around after the incident in France. "Jimmy won't hurt me."

"He might if you keep calling him Jimmy."

"So which way do we go?" Peggy asked, sidling closer to Steve, to peer out the window. Outside the black night was strewn with thick, fluffy snow, spiraling onto the ground. She was hiding a smile, much as Dugan was flaunting one. "Because I have to say, I'd try for the tower, too. It just seems… right."

Steve sighed deeply. It was almost like he was the only one dedicated to preserving Bucky's dignity. "We're going to the tower," he said eventually and completely ignored the voiceless whoop of delight Dugan affected without making any noise. Steve might have been worried sick and unable to breathe properly; he might have been teetering on the edge of the vast abyss of madness, but he wasn't completely blind to the fact that, if there was a God and He appreciated a good story as much as anyone else, then Bucky was certainly in the tower of this castle.

Getting to the tower was another matter. They've been lucky so far, ghosting down empty corridors, but it seemed like the lack of personnel was restricted to anywhere that wasn't the tower or the courtyard. On the bright side, what little Steve managed to glean with his rudimentary German, it reinforced the idea that they were heading in the right direction. There was a definite sense that the center of this establishment was established in the tower, and given the temperatures of the corridors it was likely that the rest of the castle wasn't even heated. Even Hydras needed warmth to live, Steve supposed, and it was possible the tower was easiest to keep warm.

The inherent problem was that, however sparse the staff of this castle – and it was suspiciously sparse – the way into the tower was not empty. They would have to rely on Monty for distraction, if they were to get inside, but that was still forty minutes away, provided everything went well.

Forty minutes of waiting.

_Waiting_.

"We have forty minutes," he said to Peggy under his breath. "Let's sweep the rest of the place, just in case." Just because he firmly believed there was no way in hell Bucky was anywhere but the tower (goddamn it, Bucky!), it didn't mean he shouldn't give his due diligence to the fact that this was still the real world and intelligence was less about gambling and more about making an educated guess, based on as much information as it was possible to gather. Nonetheless, he was not surprised in the slightest to find nothing, save broken furniture and piles of junk, as well as miscellaneous multi-purpose rooms, but no prisoners. Not even in the dungeons, for which Steve was profoundly grateful. The dungeons were curious, actually: exactly what he'd expect to find in a castle of this ilk, musty and dank, with the occasional rat scuttling around the rotten remains of other rats, yet empty of all signs that someone visited more often than for a cursory patrol. If this was more than a temporary outpost, there was a shocking amount of space going underutilized.

This was good news, in a way, as it meant they might stand a chance of taking the entire base out without reinforcements, but on the other hand… why? This was a perfectly defensible spot. Wars could be run and won from here, yet the longer Steve spend thinking about it, the less like a stationary base it seemed.

But the time was ticking by, and the agreed hour found Steve, Dum Dum and Peggy in the dusty, narrow space, which might have been an armory sometime during the castle's history, but for which Hydra found no use at this time. There was nothing left now, although some of the hoops and holes in the wall suggested shelving for long, thin objects, which made Steve think of long, heavy arrows, possibly even spears, or those axes with long handles he'd seen pictured in history books. Halberds? They might have been called halberds. It made for a good hiding spot: no way out other than the way they'd come and no signs of use, indicating they were unlikely to be accosted and so they waited, huddled in the dimmest corner, counting down the seconds, praying that the others were safe, that they hadn't been captured. Most of all, they were praying that they would get their distraction.

And then they did.

There is a God, Steve thought, when the castle walls shook with an explosion. There is a God and He loves Jacques Dernier. Out in the corridor the two Hydra soldiers on patrol looked at one another and raced for the courtyard, closely followed by another, but the third and the fourth remained, stationed at the only door to the tower Steve managed to find. There would be a fight, then. Steve wasn't expecting less, but if there was ever a time to be sure, if there ever was a battle he couldn't lose, it was this, it was now. So he waited, even though it went against everything he was in that moment, when every nerve in his body was telling him to fight. He didn't. He might have, were it not for Peggy's hand on his elbow, holding him in place, keeping him grounded, until the time was ripe. And then, finally, after a moment of relative quiet, interspersed with distant yelling, Steve looked into Peggy's eyes, and, finding nothing but grim determination there, slid soundlessly out of their hiding place, gun cocked, and fired almost without looking. He was no sniper, but at this distance he didn't need Bucky to make a shot that counted.

The Hydra soldier fell, soundlessly, and so did his companion, felled by Peggy's bullet. Without a word Dugan grabbed the man on the right and dragged him into the armory, while Steve took care of the other one. Bless the heavy armors Hydra chose to wear: they left no bloodstains on the stone floor, thus no indication anything was amiss.

Better still, there was no reaction from inside the tower, either from above or below.

"Up or down, Cap?" Dugan asked.

Steve sniffed the air. They weren't high enough that the updraft from the dungeon levels wasn't reaching their floor, and if the part of the dungeons they visited were any indication, these were likewise likely to be abandoned to rodents. "Up."

Up they went. Up the narrow staircase, disposing of the occasional Hydra soldier, trusting both the mayhem in the courtyard and the thick walls to alternatively distract and deafen anyone listening to the sound of guns going off. They climbed until the wall containing the stairs on the left-hand side fell away, depositing them in a wide, open space, with windows in every direction. There was an enormous table facing the southern window, littered with bottles and wires, and next to them vats, bolts and burners. Opposite the table there was a wide, buzzing fireplace, whose orange glow was muted by a heavy grill, and beside it a hulking mass of wires and plating. There were countless books strewn about the room, occupying every shred of space, well beyond their designated shelf, and those ranged from chemistry to anatomy and psychology, and, if Steve's eyesight was as good as he thought it was, there were also several treatises on philosophy and alchemy, although not one looked genuinely authentic. Of all of the rooms they'd seen this one at least looked like someone took residence there and yet it didn't seem like a place someone worked at for any length of time.

" _Ich sagte, dass ich nicht gestört werden will_ ," said a low voice, which was, despite the low pitch, clearly female. The person standing over the glass box merely a shadow in the dim interior, clad all in black, her dark hair and lips cast in an eerie green glow.

"Good evening." Steve grabbed the shield off his back, slid his arm into the straps, and a part of him delighted in the sharp turn of the woman's head, the shock in her eyes. Slightly less delightful was the subsequent dismissal, and the clear disinterest with which she regarded them, as though their presence didn't matter, as though they were merely an inconvenience, when it was only because she appeared unarmed that Steve refrained from shooting her on sight.

She looked back at him without the faintest trace of fear, and appeared to dismiss him soon after. Her gaze fell to the single brightest spot in the whole laboratory, and the space was so cluttered, and lit in such a bizarre fashion, that it took even Steve a moment to realize what he was looking at. Certainly, the glass box was not a thing easily missed, not with its volume, and the illumination it cast on the rest of the room.

" _Ludwig_ ," she said coolly, still looking down. " _Ich wäre gerne alleine_."

There was no one else present, Steve thought, though his hand twitched for the gun. He took a few steps into the laboratory, preceded by Dugan's shocked whisper of "you have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Steve couldn't blame him. Not when he was having trouble believing the testimony of his own two eyes. Because lo and behold, they have found Bucky: here he was, whole and peaceful, and asleep, still asleep, safely locked away in a glass coffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's not even pretend this image wasn't 50% of the reason I even started writing this fic (the one in chapter 2 being the other half). For more of my CAWS art visit [my tumblr tag over yonder](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/tagged/fanart%3A-caws). Or if you want to chat or anything else.


	5. Mirror Mirror on the Wall

"You know what, Cap? Even if he kills me, it will still be worth it," Dum Dum said after a long pause, and Steve didn't need to turn to know he was grinning bright like a polished brass bell. "I'm gonna tell him. Soon as he wakes up, I'm gonna walk up and tell him, right to his adorable ugly mug."

Steve gave in for just one moment, because, well, how could he not? Even Peggy was snickering, what was he supposed to do? He opened his mouth and out came "Good luck convincing anyone he's ugly now," all without his conscious input.

Sorry, Bucky. Or rather fuck you, Bucky, you brought this on yourself, because there was no way that thought didn't bear the patented Barnes humor in which Steve only occasionally partook.

It was then the he noticed the subtle whirr of machinery changing its pitch. Everything in the room hummed in an odd, visceral, yet strangely familiar harmony, but all of sudden there was a discord. Somewhere to his left the pile of wiring and plates stirred, alerting him to the fact that the confidence the woman displayed was more than just for show. In the corner beside the fireplace a robot was unfolding, blue light slithering up the vein-like structures of its arms, until the empty eye sockets burned with it, searching out the intruders with unerring focus.

This was no test run, Steve thought, heart in his throat. This was no hastily built prototype to be discarded in the course of testing, nor something to be sent on a suicide mission and ignored afterwards. In fact, when the bulk of it unfolded, Steve had only one thought rattling in his brain: this was not just a machine.

Steve kept the woman in his peripheral vision, just in case, but he might as well have minded the wall. She didn't move away from the glass box and her eyes remained fixed on Bucky, on the steady rise and fall of his chest, at the lights on the console to her right that flickered and hummed at a steady pace, bright and solemn, somehow, even though there was only one thing they could possibly be: Bucky's heartbeat. She was monitoring Bucky's heartbeat.

That, at least, they had in common, Steve thought grimly, yet the following thought seemed much more sinister – why would she need to?

"Uh, Cap?" Dugan asked, looking between the woman and the robot-thing that faced them. "Thoughts?"

Right. Steve forced his attention onto the immediate threat and away from idle speculation, idle fears and all-consuming panic. First they had this to contend with.

Because here was the thing Steve's mind kept coming back to: this was not a robot, and it wasn't just armor, either, like the one donned by that fellow they saw in the courtyard. With all the plates locked down and clipped shut at the seams it was impossible to tell, but Steve saw, right before the thing straightened, a glimpse of flesh within. It wasn't much, just a hint of a human man, surrounded by wires. The man had his hair cropped short and his eyes only barely seeing on what was in front of him, but that hint of a person easily translated into a purpose of movement, into a gait that was somehow less mechanical than that of the robots they fought; it translated into focus a machine was not capable of.

"We take it down," Steve said simply, fingers tightening around his shield's strap.

"Right." Dugan shifted on his feet, gripped the gun tighter and swallowed nervously. "Right. Any idea as to how?"

"None so far." The armor was solid, ominous: the interlocking plates made it seem impenetrable, though Steve didn't think it was water-tight and the man inside wore no breathing apparatus. Wonderful. The plan was therefore to submerge the man and his armor and wait for gravity and human biology to take its toll. All they needed was to lure the soldier to the lake. Piece of a fucking carrot cake with whipped cream on top. "Peggy?"

"Still thinking." The words were spoken grimly, through clenched teeth, yet the quiet confidence curling just under the surface filled Steve with a sense of calm. This in turn allowed his turbulent mind a safe space to form thoughts untainted by the fear which gnawed on his insides. It allowed him to think, at long last.

Contrary to popular opinion (screamed at him over spilled garbage, across streams and over the roar of speeding trucks, into the howl of a storm and the silence of a New York back alley, dear God, please let Bucky be okay, please let Bucky scream at him again, please) Steve was a great big fan of thinking. Thinking got him through a great many fights. Thinking tended to keep him fed, among other things. "We might be short on time," he admitted when the robot reached for a machine gun strapped to its side, hesitated and pulled out a long knife instead. Bullets were a risk in the enclosed space, he had had to know it. Bullets would go through glass, or through the woman who ordered the soldier, even if the soldier was impervious to them. Steve adjusted his shield to take on the attack and bent his knees and in doing so felt something shift within his head. No, he thought, and the end stage of a plan began to form. The soldier was not impervious to bullets: the armor was. Take the armor away, and he was facing a man. "I'm going to need to get close to it," Steve said under his breath. "Close enough to rip the plating off. Can you give me enough time for that?"

"Before we get pulverized?" Peggy's hands were steady and firm on the handle of her gun, which was still pointing to the floor, her eyes fixed on the machine. "I don't see how."

"Taking her hostage won't do any good?" Dugan swallowed nervously, patted his sides and reached into Bucky's satchel for a spare handgun.

Steve chanced a look at the woman, who didn't seem to be paying any attention to them, focusing instead on something Steve couldn't quite see, something hidden from view by the bulk of the glass cage. He found himself admiring her sangfroid: by now she had to know her castle wasn't adequately protected, and a battle was unfolding before her very eyes, yet by the motion of her hands she was adjusting a piece of machinery, like the imminent violence didn't even faze her. She continued to fiddle, and there came a moment when Bucky twitched, his eyes moved behind his eyelids, and the woman froze. A grim twist of her lips betrayed displeasure as he settled, and the lights continued to flicker, even though Bucky was no longer peaceful, no longer relaxed. Steve felt his heart throb in his throat, locked in a fight with the muscles that tried to force air into his lungs.

"I don't feel comfortable taking people hostage," Steve said without conviction, even though at that precise moment his stance was coming under a very hurried revision.

"I do," Peggy and Dugan said together, and, at Steve's tight nod, Peggy immediately whirled and aimed her gun at the woman, eyebrows drawn tight.

Unfortunately, this had to have been the signal the soldier in the armor was waiting for, as he sprung forward, one of his fists coming down onto the wooden floor, accompanied by an animalistic roar. Steve felt the room tremble and leapt to the side, rolled and came up in a crouch, his shield braced on his knee, ready to take the next punch.

It connected with a deep, metallic ringing, much like that of the bell of a cathedral on Easter Sunday. They were in trouble, Steve realized immediately. This thing was strong and it was fast, and by the looks of it the blue glow that powered the exploding robots wasn't going to disable the man inside. Yet… there was no follow-up to the punch. The armor stepped away, turned and extended its arm back, towards Peggy and Dugan. Before Steve could draw a breath to warn them a series of shots rang out, thankfully without precision – both Peggy and Dugan dove for the stairwell and out of range, and both of them stayed there, while the soldier whirled and sent a heavy table careening their way, blocking the exit entirely.

Steve let his shield fall a fraction, knowing that a perfect moment to attack was upon him and letting it slide, but this felt important. There was something off about the way the man moved, something familiar, even though he was clad in literal armor, hiding the muscles that could have given it away.

He dove away from another hit and the faintest sound reached him, almost a sob, and in a flash he understood: the man was in pain. The armor was causing him pain. A series of images flickered through his consciousness, first the robots from the woods, then the armor in the courtyard worn by soldiers in uniforms, finally this man, locked inside a faintly glowing suit of armor, his sunken cheeks and empty gaze. There were wires inside, wires that pierced his skin and connected his flesh to the machine, making him a part of it. He was the armor, Steve thought frantically. He was the armor and the armor was killing him.

In the split second that followed he looked around and his gaze fell on the pipes and wiring attached to the machinery surrounding Bucky. Across his chest there was a sheet of metal that could almost be a fragment of a chest plate, and several cables were wired to it, wires which looked identical to those holding the man suspended in his armor.

Steve felt bile rise to his throat. She was building more of this kind of armor. She was trying to wire Bucky into a suit of armor, she was—

"If you've hurt him at all I will kill you!" he said to the woman, getting to his feet. "Heaven help me, if you hurt him, you will not leave this place alive."

She frowned at him. " _Es tut mir Leid_ , Captain," she said, " _aber ich spreche kein Englisch_."

" _Wenn Sie ihn verletzt haben, werd ich Ihnen töten_ ," he repeated, scraping together words he was fairly certain were correct in context. Certainly, the intent was there, and German was fantastic when it came to conveying threats, even if she seemed to be as bothered by the threats uttered in her language as she was in one she didn't understand.

" _Wenn Sie ihn verletzt haben, werde ich Sie töten_ , Captain," she said, and a small smile graced her mouth, painted almost the same shade of red Peggy favored, he noted, and that was the last thing he had a chance to appreciate at leisure, because the soldier came after him in earnest, firing a—a _missile_ in his direction, one that bounced off his shield and struck the ceiling, exploding on contact. Holy shit, Steve thought, staring at the smoking, frayed edges of the thinner beams with his mouth open. It was small and thin like a pencil and yet almost as accurate as a bullet!

" _Aber keine Sorge_ ," he heard the woman speak in the distance created by the ringing in his ears, which unfortunately kept him from parsing the words. " _Schmerz ist das, was in Zukunft für immer vermieden werden soll, und ihr Freund ist ausgesprochen geeignet mir beim Erreichen dieses Zieles zu helfen_."

Steve dodged another missile, rolled under a table and kicked at its edge, flipping it so that it took the brunt of the explosion. The ancient oak survived the assault with only the faintest shudder, but the contents of the selection of bottles, which had been on the table's surface, caught fire. The soldier took a step towards Steve and the force of his movement send a gust of fumes his way, biting, noxious and vile, followed closely by the stench of burning chemicals and the heat of greenish flames.

He couldn't see for a few precious seconds, too absorbed by the need to breathe, and it was his own wheezing that masked the clanking steps of the machine as it advanced. Steve would never be sure what had saved his life then, but he suspected it might have been Peggy and Dugan, whose uneven footsteps rattled the floor of the laboratory. A series of gunshots followed by a heavy gait told him the armor had turned away, and Steve leaped out from behind the table, over the guzzling mess on the floor, gasping for air even as he slammed his shield into the soldier's back, between the interlocking armor-plates, deep enough to disrupt whatever lay directly beneath.

An ear-splitting roar rocked the building and for a second – just the one – Steve felt the scream resonate at the core of him, where he still thought of himself as one in perpetual pain. Then the soldier turned, jerked his elbow-joint twice, and a beam of light struck the spot Peggy was just a second ago. There had been a bottle there, filled with something transparent, and the second the light died down Steve saw that the bottle had exploded and none of its contents was splattered around, as though it had been vaporized instantly.

The armor was gearing up for another shot, and Peggy was still there, scrambling off the floor, fear written plainly on her face. Steve didn't think – he threw himself at the soldier's back, yanked his shield out of the armor's back, jammed a gun in its place and squeezed the trigger.

The soldier staggered, turned to him and fell back heavily, its heel striking the mechanical base of the glass coffin hard enough to rupture several lines and topple the entire structure, before falling over Bucky's prone body.

The glass shattered under the suit of armor, releasing a barely visible cloud into the dark laboratory. Steve dropped to the floor, hoping the compound was volatile enough to rise to the ceiling and for a few seconds he felt triumphant when he saw exactly that: the fumes lifting away from Bucky and enveloping the soldier on their way up. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before he saw that the cloud was too thick, too dense to have come solely from the perfectly translucent coffin: low on the floor the foot of the armor had ruptured a pipe that was now spewing fumes directly into the room, at floor-level, covering the surface with a sluggishly advancing mist.

"Peggy, Dugan, go!" Steve yelled, slamming his fist into the floor. The mist was nearly upon them, so close, and he couldn't afford to lose them to unconsciousness now. "Go!"

" _Schieß auf die Fenster, Ludwig_!" the Hydra scientist ordered meanwhile, holding a handkerchief to her face, and the armor lifted itself with great effort, aimed at the nearest window and fired a string of bullets that pierced the glass and the frame with equal ease, letting a gust of freezing wind inside.

From his vantage point Steve could still see Bucky, and thus he saw that as soon as the air around him cleared the shadows cast by his eyelashes shifted, as if he opened his eyes a fraction. That was the moment the woman leaned over him, however, tilted his head back with her fingertips while her other hand traveled down his arm and ripped something that was just out of Steve's sight. A pained moan parted Bucky's lips, and somehow that was enough to clear Steve's head of the drug pumped into the air he breathed. That sound would have been enough to bring him from the brink of death, if need be, for the fire it alighted in his veins. In a flash he was running, mindless of the gas, the fumes and the fact that the soldier in the strange, glowing armor was still in his way. It didn't matter, not one bit, because there was blood, he could smell it next to the sweet-scent of the gas. She made Bucky bleed, and Steve wasn't going to let that hurt go unavenged.

He slammed into the armor, grasped at the plating on its throat, scrabbling for purchase on the polished surface, until his gloved fingertips hooked around the edges of the plates. Steve strained and with a yell he pulled, tearing the armor's breast plate in half, scattering the pieces to the floor. The man inside stared up at him in shock, but he was quick to gather his wits and strike back, sending Steve flying into the pile of debris. A mini-missile followed, but it wasn't aimed at him, where he would have deflected it with his shield; no, the missile struck the ceiling directly over his head, sending an avalanche of stones, roof tiles and mortar-dust raining on his head. He thought was ready for the stones, despite their weight, but the assault still stunned him, as much as a veteran of countless back-alley battles can be stunned, even when a heavy beam followed the bricks, dropping across his shield, upper arm and chest. Yet it was the dust that took him by surprise, the dust that took the world away, leaving him hanging in a void for a few precious seconds, coughing on the air that he almost forgot could hurt.

He recovered swiftly, but not swiftly enough, because the soldier staggered his way, collapsing onto him with all of his weight, giving him no time to prevent being completely pinned. Steve cried out, and through the haze of pain he thought he heard the patter of heels on the stones – how could that be, he asked himself, when the entire floor was wood? – and then the clatter of metal against metal. The armor, he thought distantly. It's doing something. No matter. He couldn't move.

The open armor shook with the heaving breaths of the man inside as he leaned over Steve, propping his weight on the damaged hand, lifting the other. Steve tugged at his shield, but the weight of the rubble kept it pinned just over his shoulder, his arm still trapped in the straps. He wasn't going to get it out in time. He wasn't. The steel fist was going to fall, it was going to connect with his head, helmet notwithstanding, and he was going to die, his brain splattered over rubble and stone and ancient, creaking wood.

Run, Bucky, he could only think. Run. Get out of here.

He clenched his eyes shut, bracing himself for the end, hoping for the second between the strike and death when he might be able to get his hand around the soldier's throat.

Yet the strike did not fall. Instead of having his head turned into a red spatter Steve heard a gunshot and the armor's fist buried itself in the wooden floor, a hairsbreadth away from clipping his ear. A fountain of sparks, coming from a bullet lodged in the elbow joint, scorched the side of his face without causing him much harm otherwise.

The man looked surprised, staring down at Steve, then at his own fist. Well, for once Steve knew exactly what he felt. They both turned their heads to see Bucky prostrated on the floor besides the ruined glass coffin, his pale skin glowing in the blueish light, freckled with the reflections of the glass shards scattered over the floor. In his hand, extended towards Steve, there was a handgun, Bucky's own handgun, the one Dugan must have dropped during the fight. A wisp of smoke trailed from the muzzle, which was swaying back and forth.

"You can't even hold the gun straight!" Steve managed, the light-headedness of a near-death experience sending him into a spiral of indignation.

Bucky slurred something which, Steve was certain, couldn't be anything but a "fuck you," but hopefully not an "I didn't notice you there." The gun barked again and a bullet lodged into the exposed joint of the armor's other arm, sending a flurry of sparks out onto Steve's uniform and a blue discharge spiraling up from it, down the cables that lead into the wrist and up into the torso, into the man's flesh. The soldier tore himself from Steve, staggered to his feet, and—no, Steve didn't wince, didn't cry out a warning, but it was a fatal mistake, once his armor was torn and his human body exposed. Bucky could take down Hydra soldiers in their protective helmets with one bullet if only they peeked around the corner a mile away. A half-exposed torso and forehead from a distance of ten feet he could put on the ground blindfolded and with a bottle of whiskey warming his veins.

Steve barely heard the gun bark. His heart was pounding madly enough to pump an ocean's worth of blood through his head in every single second as he watched Bucky stare up at the robotic armor towering over him, tilt his wrist and squeeze the trigger.

The robot didn't collapse. Not right away. It had time and momentum enough to take one more step, extend both its hands, and then it fell forward, when it was close enough that for a second Steve was sure it would crush Bucky under its weight. But no: Bucky rolled at the last possible moment, pushing away from the floor with his knee and hip, slamming into a table leg with his shoulder blade with enough force to engender a strangled scream.

For one long moment all Steve could hear was his own breathing, forced into haste by the block of wood across his chest, admittedly, but most of all by the heady certainty that Bucky was all right. He was all right. He was drugged and only semi-conscious, yes, but mobile and free of serious injuries.

He was picking himself up, too, one limb at a time, half-crawling to Steve's side, the handgun still cradled in his palm, yet somehow completely forgotten. The latter Steve realized when Bucky reached his side and began pushing the beam pinning Steve to the floor, mightily confused by his inability to get a proper grip, never mind that his hands shook and goose bumps covered his exposed skin. There was an angry abrasion covering his side, from where the armor first collapsed over him, and the first bloom of a bruise covering his ribs, but none of it impeded his movement, and Steve found himself grinning for the brief second he had Bucky hovering over him, half-naked and barely there.

"Stupid fucking punk," Bucky muttered, pulling at the beam, and Steve, torn between swallowing the laughter or the tears, settled for the unsatisfying and all-too revealing option of doing it halfway with both, and a soft, moist sob escaped his throat.

"Bucky."

Bucky paused, utterly confused. "What?" he asked. He was nearly nude, a fact all the more apparent for the snow's presence, and kneeling by Steve's side, hair slicked back with whatever substance kept the wires in place. There were faint red lines impressed in his skin where the machinery dug too hard into flesh, lines Steve positively ached to smooth out with his fingertips, and his left elbow was smeared with thick, dark blood, the bruising there reaching deep into the flesh. This was where the woman ripped something out, Steve thought, and a fresh wave of anger filled him, prompting an angry hiss to escape his mouth.

"Spitting fire like a fuzzy little kitten," Bucky slurred, resting his right elbow on the star on Steve's chest to get a better grip on the beam, an effort which would be unnecessary, if he only let go of the handgun he was still gripping.

Moisture and shards of glass glittered on his skin as he heaved in an effort to dislodge He was easily the picture of triumphant victory, worthy of an oil painting, maybe even a marble sculpture, if Steve were inclined that way. He could barely breathe for the weight crushing him to the floor, but he still lifted his hand almost without thinking, resting his fingertips against Bucky's biceps, if only to make sure this was real and not a fever-dream. He hardly needed to touch however; the terrible emptiness which threatened to swallow his entire mind for the past two days was gone, and Bucky was staring down at him.

"Whuzzit Rogers?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Steve managed and with a tremendous effort looked away from the tempting valley where Bucky's collarbones met, to the ceiling, to the hole ripped by the armor's miniature missiles.

The ceiling, whose cracked support beams were straining under the heavy blocks of wood, on which the stone and tiles of the roof rested. "Get away!" Steve yelled breathlessly, panicked that his fervent prayers of gratitude would somehow damage them further. "Bucky, get the fuck away, the ceiling is about to give! Get away from me you stubborn prick!"

There was no time, the snow was spiraling inside, the flakes settling like feathers on any place they touched. The bare, exposed bones of the tower's ceiling shivered with the howling wind, the same wind that send dust and with it small bits of mortar whipping across the laboratory with enough force to embed them in glass, and more was coming down, Steve was sure of it. He could feel the structure tremble through the rubble his back was already pressed against, and Bucky was in the way, Bucky, who was practically nude, who paid no attention to anything past the smooth block of wood lying across Steve's chest, ignorant of the fact that he couldn't get a proper grip on the oaken beam because his right hand was still wrapped around the handgun.

"Move!" Steve yelled, just as the stubborn beam finally, finally gave in to Bucky's heaving pulls, and Steve's lungs filled with air. And then… everything just _happened_ , too fast to follow for the sickly kid from Brooklyn, but not fast enough for Captain America to register with perfect precision, down to the last perfect snowflake, which alighted on Bucky's pale shoulder. It melted there, capturing within its diminutive volume the reflection of the machine's lights and the glow of the moon, before it slid down the slope of his clavicle, to fill the hollow at the base of his neck.

The ceiling gave with a crack loud enough to penetrate whatever drugs were fogging up Bucky's sharp mind, and he, the fool, the idiot, the utter fucking dickhead, Steve thought in despair, collapsed forward, over Steve, whose body was still pinned, still immobile, as though he could shield him with his good intentions alone. But then a stroke of incandescent luck sent the first support beam slamming over Steve's shield with enough force to dislodge the rubble pinning it down, allowing him to pull it free and throw it over Bucky's back. Fuck the avalanche of stone, fuck the inevitable broken bones, he thought fiercely. This he could endure. This he would endure.

Fuck the floor, collapsing under the strain, in a flurry of dust and snow and a strangled, desperate twin cry, uttered by Dugan and Peggy from across the room. Steve was falling, but somehow it wasn't a concern, not when his shield was carving out a safe space in the destruction for him and Bucky, enough so that he found his heartbeat settling into a comfortable rhythm. He was weightless, free, like he had been that one summer afternoon, when Brooklyn had been glowing with sunshine, when his belly had been full for the first time in a week and Bucky had been dozing next to him, head pillowed on the threadbare couch. His skin had been golden that Sunday afternoon, wherever the light had touched it. It was a shade of gold Steve could swear not even a poet could capture, let alone he with his grey pencils and a meagre supply of paint, and color blindness besides. He'd tried anyway, because his eyes and his nose and fingertips all told him this was a moment he would remember forever, but the detail of it, the precise shade, that was now etched into his memory, that he could never have gotten right. He'd endeavored to capture the details instead: he remembered tracing the curve of Bucky's lips endlessly across the yellowish paper, the shadow of his eyelashes on smooth cheeks, the blinding white glimmer of moisture in the Cupid's bow of his mouth, threatening to spill over into the V of Bucky's open shirt.

Steve remembered that afternoon as a stunning beacon of his own bravery: he had reached out and smeared that droplet with his fingertip, his fragile heart hammering wildly in his chest. The drawing had been barely good enough to capture the likeness, but it had been something else entirely: the sparse lines had captured the relaxed pose and carefree nudity Steve'd so daringly envisioned. He'd burned the drawing moments later, scorching his fingertips along the way, washed the ashes away with the lukewarm water and stared out the window, into the shimmering air.

That was then. Now, his back hit the floor and the glorious golden moment was over, dissipated in the desperate heaving of his rebelling lungs, fighting for every gasp of air, in the scarce moonlight and scattered among snowflakes.

"Bucky?" he asked, anxiously, his fingertips twitching.

A faint grumble answered him, and after that a huff of breath, ghosting across his exposed throat.

"Steve!" Peggy yelled from above. "Are you okay?"

"I think he's asleep," he called back, hardly daring to believe his own words.

"I'm coming down there!"

The dust was settling; it looked like the tower was build solid after all. Steve's eyes were struggling to make out shapes in the dark when his head was still swimming, but he could make an educated guess, and when one of the moving shapes detached from the ceiling and landed on the same level he was currently at, causing a fresh cloud of dust to rise from its comfortable bed, he could, in good faith, assume that was Peggy.

"Easy there," she said, pulling the shield aside, her gloved hands straightening limbs, fighting against Steve's instinct to hold on with surprising strength. "Nothing seems broken. His pulse is strong."

Peggy's carefully maintained curls, which retained their shape even now, spilled over Steve's uniform when she bent her head to listen to Bucky's heartbeat. "Sounds good to me," she said at last, grinning down at Steve. "He's fine!" she added in the direction of the bowler hat that peered at them from the torn ceiling. "Sleeping like a baby."

Steve politely pretended the ensuing "Sarge, you stupid motherfucker," wasn't laced with tearful gratitude, directed at the Almighty.

"Steve?"

Peggy was looking at him now, her hands digging into his jaw. "Yeah?"

"Anything hurts?"

Curious choice of words. Plenty hurt, truth be told, but Steve took a moment to wiggle his toes and fingers (right hand, having come loose during the fall, curled protectively around Bucky's spine, keeping him close), then knees and elbows. Not one joint protested. Not one gave him trouble. "I'm fine."

"How's your back?"

"Hurts a little," Steve admitted, with a bright, joyous smile. "Nothing to be worried about, I landed on some bricks."

"We should get out of here," Peggy said, straightening out Bucky's right hand, smearing the blood in the bruised bend of his elbow. Steve bit his lip and looked at the sky again, begging God for strength, for anything that would let him walk out of here without destroying everyone in his path.

Bucky shuddered, his forehead crinkled even in his sleep, and his head turned so that his face was tucked into the collar of Steve's uniform.

"Can you find a blanket?" Steve asked instead. The winter chill was becoming a dire threat, instead of a mild inconvenience.

"Sure thing." She smiled down at him and rose, while Steve let his head tip back. They were fine. They won. Snow was still falling onto his face, and the dust hadn't quite settled, but they were done, it was over. It was time to go. He followed Peggy slowly, shifting Bucky along the way, until he could free his arm from the leather straps of his shield and slide it under Bucky's knees and stand.

Bucky didn't quite fit into his arms. He was a tall man, about Captain America's height, after all. There was no reason to expect him to fit snugly into his embrace, yet somehow Steve kept picturing exactly that in his mind: Bucky, curled up and held safe and warm, carried to safety. Instead he held a squirming giant who huffed at every turn and grumbled under his breath, still on the wrong side of conscious, his curled back offering little purchase.

He was also heavy as holy hell.

"Oh thank God," Dugan breathed, kicking in the door to their level and staggering inside, likely still reeling from whatever was in the gas. "Is Sarge really okay?"

"The drugs are still in his system," Peggy told him, pretending valiantly there was no additional sway in her step, "but his pulse is stable and he's grumbling, so I think he's going to be fine."

"Thank God." Dug stood there motionless for a minute, hat against his chest, blocking Steve's path, and Steve couldn't bring himself to work up annoyance. "Thank you, sweet Jesus."

"Let's go," Steve said quietly, shifting Bucky's weight so that Peggy could put the blanket around his back. "We need to get back to the camp."

"Sure thing, Cap!" Dugan bounced on the balls of his feet, nearly dropping the substantial bundle of stuff he was carrying in excitement, when he saw the handgun on the floor. "Ah, mustn't lose his favorite pistol, there'd be yelling."

"What've you got there?" Peggy asked curiously, bending to lift Steve's shield off the ground.

"Hm? Oh, I think I found his shit." Dugan juggled his load and even in the faint light of the moon, peeking through the clouds, Steve saw that he was holding a spread of colors he was used to seeing on Bucky, worn leather-black and vivid navy-blue, in addition to the satchel Dum Dum had once again slung over his shoulder. "Trust Krauts to keep everything neatly folded, am I right?"

He led the way out of the tower, down the stone staircase and into the courtyard, where – and this Steve remembered with a jolt of guilt – they didn't even know if the rest of their unit was still alive. They were, thank God: Falsworth was standing guard by the door, the rifle in his taut hands, with Morita, Gabe and Dernier lurking just out of sight, also ready to open fire at any moment. A few unmoving bodies were piled up in the corner, and the four of them were unmistakably standing guard over the conquered castle.

All four exhaled as one when Peggy emerged into the courtyard, her gun at the ready.

"Carter!" Gabe yelled joyously. "Give us the good news!"

Peggy turned towards Steve, mouth curved in a smile, the shield on her arm, and waved Steve forward. "We got the princess," she said proudly when he emerged into the artificial light the lamps provided.

Steve couldn't even say he was trying to pretend to feel outraged on Bucky's behalf when his Howling Commandos break into a wholly spontaneous rendition of the Hi-Ho song. He couldn't say that, because he lent his struggling baritone to the chorus, lagging behind and butchering the occasional note, a deficiency Peggy's lovely alto more than made up for.

"He will kill us all," Monty concluded merrily, once Steve sent Morita, Jacques and Gabe to deal with the tower by means of fire. With a little effort Steve then climbed into one of the emptied trucks, never letting his precious cargo out of his arms. "Bless whatever's keeping him out at the moment."

"Let's pray he's really tired, the drugs can't have been that strong, I saw him shoot a gun fifteen minutes ago," Dugan said, handing the bundle of Bucky's clothes and boots to Peggy, who'd climbed into the truck after Steve. "And wow, the fucker can shoot."

"I was only twenty feet away." Steve tugged his gloves off and busied himself with the heavy blanket, a small smile tugging at his lips. In and out, rise and fall; he could stay exactly here for hours and just watch Bucky breathe, feel the warmth of his skin under his fingertips. He could… but no, he couldn't. Thankfully, Dugan was still talking, and all signs on heaven and earth suggested he wasn't likely to stop.

"He was drugged outta his pretty little head, couldn't stand up, and he shot three fucking bullets, and, I swear to God, he nailed each one," Dugan was saying. "I don't see why we even bothered, he sure as hell didn't need a prince to save his ass."

"I see you're rescinding your previous claims?" Steve hasted to point out, a faint panic gripping his throat. He left Peggy to make sure Bucky's head was properly cushioned by his jacket and turned to face Dugan fully. "I seem to recall detrimental comments made on the quality of his visage."

Dugan took a moment to puzzle it out, but eventually his mustache curved upward. "See, that's why I like you, Cap, you're expanding my vocabulary. And yeah, sure, I rescind or whatever – as you said, who's gonna believe me now?"

"Get behind the wheel, Dum Dum," Steve told him, shaking his head. "That's an order."

"Hi-ho to you too, Cap." Dugan threw a salute his way, and with one last fond look at the bundle of a man and blanket, currently curled up in the corner of the truck, he hopped into the driver's seat, with Monty taking up shotgun, allowing Morita, Gabe and Dernier to climb into the back, so that they could finally go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Only one chapter to go! :D


	6. Who's the Fairest of Them All

**New York, 2015**

For someone who can whip up a rousing speech at the drop of a hat Steve sure is a mediocre story teller, Sam thinks. He has read military requisition forms with more literary spice to them (thank you, Riley), so it's not like he doesn't know quality literature when it's fed to him through his eardrums. Unless the theme of the day is _dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_ , Steve had better stick to pie-eating contests.

On the other hand, the scathing assessment of Steve's storytelling doesn't explain why Sam's jaw is hanging around his knees, which it is. What the hell, his brain wants to ask, even though parts of it are too busy rendering the details in high-def CGI, complete with musical numbers, which means Sam has no speaking power to spare. Luckily, he has backup.

"Bullshit," spills from Bucky's mouth on the scant breath he managed to draw. Sam's gratified to learn he's not the only one who's been listening to the tale holding his breath.

Steve looks mildly affronted. "All true."

"Absolutely not." Tony stands up and points an accusing finger at the good captain. "No. There would have been reports and word of mouth and, if there is a God, which there is, and you all know him, his name is Thor, there would have been a Broadway musical and a movie. Possibly a hit HBO series, with boobs and prostitutes and maybe even dragons. You are making this up."

"I swear it's all true!"

"If I may, sir," JARVIS' smooth voice interjects from the ceiling, "there are references to a… situation in Bavaria in the publicly available accounts of the war, a situation which involved Sergeant Barnes. There is also a report on record, but it's nowhere near as exciting, I have to say, even if the gist seems to match Captain Rogers' story."

"Denial subroutines my ass," Sam says to himself, but Steve is giving them all a smug look, so internal sarcasm has to wait. "That proves nothing, I hope you realize, other than you're a terrible liar."

"It's all true and I can prove it." Steve folds his arms and glares. "We wrote an actual report, Gabe, Peggy and I. We weren't in the habit of taking selfies, then, being that technology was lacking, but there were illustrations. Gabe and Peggy signed the report, if you're not willing to trust my word on it."

"We are not willing. JARVIS?" Tony demands of the ceiling.

"I'm afraid details are highly classified, and the best I can find is a reference. The report in question has not been digitized, and the only hard copy is stored in the Library of Congress. It had been donated in 1961 by the will of late Major General Philips. It is available to the President of the United States and them alone."

"So that's settled," Tony says, clapping his hands.

Natasha looks his way with a small smile. "What, you're running for President?"

"No, we're breaking into the Library of Congress."

It is no surprise that this is met with a unanimous "no." Well, almost unanimous.

"I would vote for you," Bucky says. He slid down from the backrest of the couch onto crossed legs, somehow landing in lotus position without visible adjustments and dear God. Sam's not bitter. He's not! He is a Good Friend and he is happy for his Good Friend's physical fitness (the superhuman asshole). There's not even a touch of resentment there, no sarcasm, truly! It's just that Sam runs and exercises and stretches and still he needs to think about it during yoga classes.

But onto the important matters: "Can you vote?"

Sam wasn't informed Bucky's legal situation has been resolved to this degree. Far as he knows they're keeping him a secret for the time being.

Bucky shrugs. "It's a question of getting registered, and I'm sure I could procure a decent ID," explains the inspiration behind the stories that the intelligence community whispers to one another at extremely anonymous nights, as is Sam's understanding of the spy circles. "One good enough for voting shouldn't be more than a couple hundred bucks, if you know where to look."

Steve, predictably, sits up in alarm. "Bucky, that's voter fraud. Voter fraud is bad."

"I would only vote once."

"But you'd have to pay money to people who procure false IDs! That's financing criminal activity," Steve insists rather adorably ignoring the general fraud charges. Oh Steve, Sam thinks. Never change.

"I can't see how that's any worse than feeding phony stories to a person with a history of acute schizophrenia," Bucky says, eyebrow cocked in a clear challenge. "Really, why not show up in the middle of the night and swap all the furniture while I sleep and pretend it's 1944 and the war just ended? What could possibly go wrong?"

"The story is one-hundred-percent true!"

Sam catches Natasha's eye and holds up his palm, putting a finger down to the count of five, four, three, two, one…

"And you are not ill, you've been injured, that's different!"

"If the end result is still me keeping detailed notes on what is and isn't demonstrably true, I don't see the difference." Bucky crosses his arms. "If Berkeley was right, the universe is decidedly screwed. And I don't believe you."

Steve's eyes narrow into a familiar mask, one that Sam has learned to dread more than skulls on octopi. Unlike skulls on octopi, which often signified madmen on a crusade, this was the face of a pragmatic man on a mission, which meant same basic insanity, in the long run, but without the dental plan. "Fine," Steve says, and somehow Sam knows exactly what will come out of his mouth next, down to the letter, to the faintest inflection. "We're breaking into the Library of Congress."

Sam groans and very strongly considers braining himself on the coffee table. "No disrespect to Nicholas Cage, but that sequel was stupid and I refuse to participate in a reenactment."

"As opposed to the prequel which wasn't?" Natasha asks out of the corner of her mouth.

"Hey, _National Treasure_ is a national treasure."

"Heathen."

"I'm supposed to pretend it wasn't you who snuck the _Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_ into the Blu-Ray pile?"

"I plead the fifth."

Steve is ignoring them completely, as is Tony, which is good, as Sam is not in the mood for another three hours of bemoaning the state of humanity and desecration of America's True Heroes. So Indy somehow had a son who swung on lianas, good for you, Indy.

"I remember the other report," Steve is saying. "Bucky wrote it. It was two pages long and mainly listed weapons we encountered."

"Unlike the other report, the one that sounds like someone went to town on World War history with a Grimm brush, you mean?" Tony folded his hands across his chest. "What gives, anyway, didn't you make the wicked witch dance in iron shoes, at least? C'mon Cap, invest in a creative writing class, listeners need closure! Am I right, Robocop?"

But Bucky is staring at a mystical something located just past Sam's head again, hopefully scaring it off. "Hey man," Sam says, leaning forward. "You okay?"

"Fine." But Bucky's hands trembled, even folded as they were on his knees, and the plating on his wrist resettled with a faint whirring noise.

"Bucky?"

"She made my arm."

Steve sits up straight, eyes wide. "Bucky—"

"She was there when I woke up in the lab. After—" His right hand tightens around his left wrist, digging into the plates, forcing them into stillness. "After I fell. She was there. Most of my arm wasn't. My arm was… wasn't. There."

Oh boy, Sam thinks. It's four thirty in the afternoon, and the Rogers constellation is moving into the murder apex. Your horoscope for tonight, Mr. Wilson, includes grave robbing and corpse desecration.

"Bucky," Steve starts saying, voice trembling with the urge to render flesh from a body long dead.

Sam is not looking forward to Steve kicking the bucket. He's got a substantial bet going that the very first thing Captain America will do, upon arriving at the pearly gates, would be to demand a tour of hell, so that he can commit acts of unspeakable violence on some of its denizens without the peskiness of human morality.

No, really, this was a plan Steve detailed to Sam in as many words.

"She saved my life," Bucky admits meanwhile, putting a massive ixnay on the grave desecration for the night, to Sam's carefully compartmentalized relief. "They screwed something up, nearly succeeded where the very hard rocks failed. My arm was a mess to begin with, but… they made it worse. Somehow. Then they couldn't do anything without trimming it at the shoulder. I didn't like that. I didn't think it made sense. I didn't—it didn't make sense. I mean, you'd think they'd realize scooping out a shoulder and sticking wires into it without knocking a patient out first will warrant some commentary." His fingers flex, catching the light. "It wouldn't work. It wouldn't move.

"It hurt," he adds in a careful voice and there is a collective rush of air out of every person present. Few things hurt by Barnes' standards. "I think I ruined someone's shoes. Because there was still blood in me. Somehow." He traces the seam on the ring finger of his left hand. "They brought her in to fix it and she did. She made the arm work without hurting me." He trails off briefly. "I killed her later. Can't remember when, but she was old. She was waiting for me."

It is always fun to watch Steve's face whenever Bucky reminisces on the gory parts of his history. It's like one of the money-efficient shots in a Hollywood production, when point the camera at a face and watch it tell the story in the ever-reliable medium of eyelash flutters and tendon twitches. Today's performance is particularly riveting, because it sweeps through the stage in no less the three concurrent stories, each with its own choreography and decoration. Ding-dong, the witch is dead, says Steve's forehead; I'm in acute emotional pain and mentally tallying how this is my fault, says everything else. Hand me a hankie, Sam, say his baby blues. Hand me a hankie and follow me to the gents', because I'm about to have a complete fucking breakdown and I need a shoulder to cry on that won't give me a crick in the neck.

Natasha might be leading the score on smiles, but hot damn if Sam isn't the superior support, emotional or otherwise. Score one Team Falcon, Sam communicates with his eyebrows, while keeping his face carefully neutral, giving Steve space to compose himself, although God only knows when that will happen, if Bucky is still off in Happy, Happy Joyful Memories Land.

"Usually when you let villains get away you fuck up, but clearly Captain America operates on another frequencies altogether. Well done, Capsicle," Tony says, awash in barely concealed sympathy. "I can see why we let you make the plans."

"My life is fucking hilarious that way," Bucky says, and rolls over the back of the couch, quite impressive, actually. He goes from sitting to standing, snatching an apple from the bowl as he goes. Sam's wildly jealous for a moment, because yeah, he's not perfect, and Barnes moves like mercury, but then he remembers he has wings and Bucky throws the curve of fucked up beyond the horizon, so Sam's got that going for him, which is nice.

He kinda has the urge to get up and give Bucky a hug, for no reason whatsoever.

Natasha looks at him like he knows what he's thinking and Sam cringes, or would, if her luscious lips didn't bear the faintest hints of a smirk. I know what's up, bro, the smirk is saying, even while her eyes hint at enough warmth to suggest what she's truly thinking, deep down, is: "I hear you."

Then of course Bucky has to go and ruin the moment: "Of course the jury's still out on whether saving my life is a good thing or a bad thing. Far as Hydra scientists go, it looks fifty-fifty, actually."

"Buck—" Steve manages to get out before Bucky shoves the apple he's holding into his mouth. Steve bites down instinctively, chews, and says "It's not funny!" spraying juice on the coffee table.

"Stark is sniggering."

"That's how I know it's not funny!"

"Hey!"

"You can't have it all, you know," Steve says in response to Tony's outrage.

"One, yes I can, two, of course I can, who's gonna stop me?"

"I was going to say common human decency, but clearly that's not on the menu."

"May I be excused?" All heads swivel towards Bucky, who stands utterly still, staring at the carpet, the apple dangling from his hand. Even Stark feels the chill of winter.

"Yes, you may," Steve says quietly and Bucky is off, out the door before anyone could've had the chance to think about him leaving.

"Hey," Sam says to Steve, who looks like he's seconds away from bursting into tears. Which he probably is, but Sam can be tactful enough to pretend that's only one of many options. "It's okay. He'll be fine. He just needs a moment."

"I know, I just—I liked this story. I liked how it ended," Steve says, like he isn't quite so sure anymore.

Well fuck, Sam and Natasha think. Or Sam thinks and projects on Natasha, either of the two, but her gaze is sharp enough to warrant the first thought. "It was a fun story." Like most war stories in which only Nazis get hurt, Sam supposes, dignity notwithstanding. He himself has a few to share, minus the Nazis, for epoch reasons. Like the time he and Riley managed to get drunk by accident by flying through a cloud of ethanol vapors. Let's just say Angry Birds was their officially sanctioned nickname for a good long while.

"Do you think I should talk to him?" Steve asks. "Or… someone should?"

Sam values his life and limb, so he stays his professional volunteering impulse. "Give him a moment to process, perhaps, and then try?"

Steve freezes in position, waiting for signal to depart.

"Or go now, really, I'm not your mother, don't let me tell you what to do. But I'd give him a moment."

"Take an apple with you," Natasha says.

"He just took one."

"Apples make Bucky happy."

Steve stares at her.

"How is this a surprising to you?"

"It's not, I just—" Steve scratches the back of his head. "Really?"

"You'd think he wouldn't eat them so much if he expects to get poisoned every time," Tony says. "But nope, he's chomping them down like they actually kept doctors away."

"I've got to go," Steve says, and all but runs for the door.

"Steve!" Natasha follows that with a sharp whistle and a round, red apple, pitched perfectly at Steve's head.

He snatches it out of the air, mid-turn and grins. "Thanks!" he calls and disappears through the door.

"You ever played baseball?"

"Sam," Natasha says, ignoring his comment altogether. "It's your moment to shine."

"Every day is my moment to shine."

"Let me rephrase: it's the moment to use your executive powers for evil."

"Should I be hearing this? Pepper says I should avoid temptation and leave the room if someone mentions executive powers and evil in the same sentence, just in case. You'd think she'd trust me to thwart evil with my executive powers."

"Pepper is a wise woman."

"What executive powers does Wilson have that I don't, anyway?"

"Wilson," Natasha says, "has the power to watch surveillance videos."

It takes Stark a moment to catch up. "Wait, wait—you mean you can watch Cold Dark and Brooding whenever you want? Including in the shower?"

"Why would I—" Sam begins, but Stark is utterly uninterested in listening. Again.

"Oh my god. Why was I not informed? JARVIS, I am reformatting you immediately. How could you do this to me!"

"I have been programmed to respect privacy, sir."

"No, you weren't! What idiocy is this? Sergeant Murder has a prosthetic integrated into his nervous system, whose secrets are my holy duty to unravel! I need all data!"

"All databases on human interaction suggest it is bad manners to spy on people in the shower, sir," JARVIS says primly.

"All. Data. Do you know how hard it is to develop something with the kind of range of motion he has which won't go wonky in moist conditions? Do you? There is a wealth of information in how he handles it in the shower that's probably programmed into his heavily encrypted databases! A holy duty!" Tony pauses to take a breath and glares at Sam. "Why does Tweety here get executive powers, anyway? It's my house!"

"Mr. Wilson is allowed access if he has reasonable suspicion the videos might contribute to Sergeant Barnes' therapy, and even then it's only if he is not expressly forbidden to do so."

Natasha's elbow digs sharply into Sam's side. "Bucky's distraught and Steve will make it worse before it gets better."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you." Natasha smiles sweetly. "We're this close to solving the apple kerfuffle. This close!"

Tony puts his happy shower thoughts on hold for a moment. "I thought it's solved. Wasn't it solved? I thought it was pretty clear, what with the poison and the kidnapping and all. You won't catch me conscious in a Humvee, I don't need a trip down memory lane to figure out why."

Sam is inclined to agree with Tony, but Natasha is wearing that expression again, the one that says she's ahead in the game, has weighed the dice, and is disinclined to share the location of a ladder of a snake. "Oh for fuck's sake, boys," she says in exasperation. "Bucky doesn't particularly like apples. He eats them only when Steve's around. They're a comfort food."

"Odd choice for a comfort food," Tony says. "I'd got for something with less vitamins, eating vitamins is practically work."

"Sam…"

"JARVIS, please gives us a visual on Bucky." For the record, Sam is uncomfortable about this. Not so much _this_ this (he recognizes a potentially volatile situation at hand), but the whole executive powers thing. That kinda power could go to a man's head. On the other hand, the discomfort comes with some sick perks, so mostly it's the fact that this is so far above his paygrade that's making him feel the tiniest bit bad. But! Bucky was distressed and he did resort to formally requesting solitude in a very robotic manner, which ticks two (maybe even three – the manner is important) boxes on the list of Warning Signs to Watch Out For that Sam and Bucky put together. Yes, exactly. So it's all good.

"You can beat yourself up later, Sam," Natasha says and crosses the room to the flat display on the wall, on which Bucky is staring morosely into the New York snow storm out of the enormous windows on his and Steve's floor.

"This is a violation of privacy, even if it is sanctioned." Sam hisses when TV-Bucky is joined by TV-Steve.

Natasha smiles and pats his shoulder. "We are not trying to move into the no man's cyberspace. We're just concerned citizens looking out for a friend."

"The friend in question being you."

"Don't you want to be my friend?"

"Depends on who I have to spy on to get there."

"Bucky, Steve, Stark when the mood strikes me. Clint tells me everything anyway, so he's out, and I like to keep an eye on Bruce, it helps him sleep. Plus, naturally, whoever it is I'm being paid to spy on."

"How is that you have a ready answer to that question?"

"Practice."

"What do you mean when the mood strikes you?" Tony demands. "I'm interesting all the time!"

"More interesting than our two resident fossils?" Natasha asks, and Sam is willing to bet good money she aims for sarcasm when the sentence begins, but by the time she gets more than two words out her eyes are already growing wide enough to reflect the entirety of the enormous screen in one go and the sardonic lilt mellows into a breathy gasp.

Tony sputters, registers a complaint, and then falls silent, for obvious reasons.

So that's how it is, Sam thinks, and grins. "JARVIS, cut the feed," he says, and whaddya know, the screen is still grinning at him, long after it goes blank.

 

**Bavaria, 1944**

The truck started without a hitch and lurched into motion. Steve let his head fall back, drawing languid breaths from the limited supply of fresh air the truck boasted. Yet no matter how stale it seemed, how used, it still tasted of victory. Outside the world was beginning to go grey, the first tentative tendrils of color were climbing up the sky, he was dead tired, the air smelled of dust and motor oil, and they have won. Steve let his head loll to the side, so that he had the greyish bundle of rough fabric in his peripheral vision and he began to pray.

It was almost an hour before Bucky started stirring under the blanket. "Whaa," he managed, lifting himself up on one elbow when the truck drove over and uneven patch of ground, sending the lot of them sprawling. "The fuck?"

"How are you feeling, Sergeant?" Peggy asked, bracing herself on the floor at his side, one hand reaching for the pulse point on his throat.

"What the fuck just happened?" he asked, every other word bearing traces of the administered drug. Peggy made quick work of checking his heartbeat and pupils, nodding at the rest of them as soon as she was done, going as far as knocking on the partition between them and the driver's cab.

"Oh, nothing big." Gabe grinned, his teeth a slash of whiteness in the twilight. "An evil witch sent a poisoned apple to kidnap your white ass."

Bucky backed himself into the corner, bare feet digging into the truck floor, staring at the lot of them in turn. "Didja hit your head one too many times, Jones?"

"He's telling the truth, Buck," Steve told him gently, mustering all the honesty he was capable of, and even then it was a hard sell. Luckily for him, lying to Bucky had always been pointless. Not because he didn't want to, sometimes – God only knew how he tried – but because it just wasn't possible. "An evil witch sent a poisoned apple that made you fall asleep and then put you in a glass coffin."

It took a moment for Gabe to translate the revelation into French, not including time spent on reacting, so that Dernier could join Morita and Gabe in gawping. From the guffaw of laughter in the front of the truck Steve assumed Dugan was sharing the details with equal glee, and who could blame him, really.

"Well then," Bucky drawled after a long, tense moment, filled with incredulity and flat stares. He tugged the blanket around his shoulders, even as Steve handed over his clothes and continued, "I sure as fuck hope it was Carter who kissed me, and not any of you ugly midgets. Not that I believe you, but I fucking deserve a fairy-tale princess' kiss."

"I'm common as dirt, Sarge," Peggy said. "Being British doesn't make me a princess."

"Your lot've got a King, don't ya?"

"To whom I'm not in any way related."

Bucky stared at her blankly, with a smile contained just under his skin, an expression so faint that only Steve could be reliably called upon to identify it. "Why not?" he asked, tilting his head in confusion. The movement had to have been too much, however, and Bucky tipped to the side, into what could possibly even be a swoon, were it not for the fact Steve grabbed his upper arm and righted him in his seat. He didn't let go until the confused daze in Bucky's eyes gave way to something sharper, something that allowed him to shake out his bundle of clothes and get dressed, despite the trembling of his hands. The guys and Peggy had looked away, sniggering among themselves again, but Steve couldn't bring himself to do likewise.

Bucky shifted against the side of the truck once he was fully dressed, and folded the blanket around his shoulders. He was shivering despite the woolen scarf knotted around his neck, and the blanket draped over his coat. His head fell, chin resting against his chest, and Steve heard the faintest hitch in his breath. It was nothing, barely even a sound; just a tiny hiccough not even worth mentioning, but it crashed through Steve's awareness like a fucking Hydra tank nonetheless. They were safe, they were on the way home and Bucky was terrified.

He was terrified.

He had only just woken, Steve thought, in the back of a moving truck, with no memory of how he got there. He had every right to be frightened. Steve reached out without thinking, safe in the knowledge that Peggy was describing their finding in excruciating detail to the three men who weren't there to witness it, demonstrating a passable knowledge of French while she was at it. He curled an arm around Bucky's shoulders, pulling him against his side, his hand digging into the coarse material of the blanket. He had seconds, at best, before the Commandos' attention strayed from the story and onto its unwilling hero, and he willed those seconds to stretch into infinity, because those seconds were all he was going to get. He dared not speculate what was showing on his face right then, with Bucky's nose against his throat, with his uneven breaths warming Steve's skin, from the spot just over the neck of his uniform down to the tips of his toes.

He thought, in a stunning moment of clarity that had both the marking of an epiphany and a revelation, and simultaneously was anything but: here was his own heart, its strong beat filling his veins with blood; here it was just out of the reach of his fingertips.

The thought burned a painful, punishing flame throughout his gut, and it hurt, hurt beyond words, that if he were Dugan he could've just tugged Bucky under his arm, ruffle his hair and keep him there, and it would be fine, it would be comfort and camaraderie and nothing more. But because he was Steve and this was Bucky, he had only those few seconds, had only the barest bones of comfort to offer, when he wanted, he _needed_ , to give and to take so much more.

"She took me because of Zola, Steve. Because of what happened in Azzano. She thought I'd be useful because of that," Bucky confessed in a broken whisper. " _She knew what happened in Azzano_." Then a shade lower. "They will want to know, too."

The SSR would want to know that, Steve realized. They would want to know why. And they would get the brass to let them find out. Steve dug his fingers into Bucky's shoulder, feeling the taunt muscles even through the layers of thick cloth.

"They don't need to know anything," he whispered back. "And they won't ask. We'll take care of it. Won't be hard, it's almost too ridiculous, ain't it? Poisoned apples, fancy castles: only thing missing is helpful woodland creatures. We write down what really happened, they'll never believe it, and we can sell them anything."

Bucky nodded, drawing a deep breath. He allowed himself the space of the last of their few precious seconds to tremble against Steve, his left hand digging into Steve's side. His fingers slipped into Steve's pocket and then Bucky was straightening up, the comb Steve kept in his pockets between his fingertips. "That’s gotta sting, Carter, eh?" he said, as he began to fix his hair.

Across the back of the truck Peggy sat up with a frown. "Excuse me?"

"I know I'm prettier than all of those losers put together, but I figured I at least gotta shave to be prettier than you." He scratched against his chin, at the three days' worth of stubble. "Maybe try some lipstick. What's that brand you use?"

Peggy didn't laugh, but the eyes shimmered like she was about to. She looked down at her pack, the color wiped off her mouth by the grueling days of too much fighting, unconsciousness and no rest, but no less stunning for it. "I hoped it would have never come to this," she said sweetly, reached down and took out a wrinkled apple, a pale gold variety the kind that smelled sweet and held forever in a cold cellar, an apple Steve recognized as having come from one of the bushels Philips sequestered for the officers. "Now, make a wish and take a bite."

The fruit sailed across the truck, from her open palm towards Bucky, and without conscious thought Steve snatched it out of the air before it could reach him. The blankness didn't dissipate as he took a hearty bite and passed it over to its intended recipient. "Well, I'm not feeling sleepy. Guess you're not pretty enough, pal," he said, chewing.

Bucky took the apple, even though Steve could see a similar blankness painted on his face, and pressed his lips against the bite mark. For a fraction of a second, before his teeth dug into the pale yellow flesh, it was a kiss, albeit an indirect one: Bucky's soft lips pressed against the imprint of Steve's mouth, and with a flicker of Bucky's eyes Steve felt it, too. He felt it as keenly as if those lips were to brush against his own, and he could do nothing but sit immobile inches away and _want_.

The squad watched them with varying expressions of unease, but there was nothing Steve could do now, nothing to dissuade it. Worst of all, a part of him did not care to, consequences be damned.

"Man, that's good," Bucky sighed meanwhile. "I knew the brass was keeping the good shit."

"You should see the coffee Philips gets," Peggy told him.

"How surprised I am not." Bucky grinned, wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Oh, and one more thing," he added, taking another bite. "It's all fun and games, but anyone so much as breathes an unduly descriptive word, from now on, you're gonna be doing pushups until our lord Jesus Christ comes down from heaven and asks me for mercy on your behalf."

"Oh come on!" The Howling Commandos chorused in perfect harmony.

"I have spoken." Bucky relaxed into the side of the truck and grinned around another mouthful of the apple. "Seriously. Do you want Philips to find out you manage to lose me? I mean again?"

"Hey! 'S not our fault you got the Evil Queen—" Gabe started, but it took one sweet smile of Bucky's to shut him up.

"We still gotta write a report," Steve said, catching Peggy's gaze. "I'm pretty sure I still have my pencils. Wouldn't wanna skimp on the visuals – Philips will want to know."

"If you think I won't make you do push-ups, if you follow through on that thought, you're sadly mistaken," Bucky said with the casually amused air of a man who was unconscious for much of the proceedings and was therefore excused from contributing, but his eyes swept across the rest of the guys and Peggy, too.

"I outrank you."

"You keep telling yourself that."

Their welcome at camp was less that of triumphant heroes – which Steve rather felt like, in all honesty – and more that of an unruly child back from its mischief, with Philips demanding excuses for their silence and lack of results other than "we prevailed against the forces of evil". There was only so much to report when the majority of their findings went up in smoke, and the main perpetrator disappeared God only knew where. Still, the brass demanded information, and so Peggy – bless her soul – showed up the following morning with a box of watercolors. With Dugan treating Bucky to a celebratory beer, and the rest of the Commandos tagging along, Peggy and Steve, together with Gabe, who turned out to have a knack for turning a phrase, composed an accurate rendition of their adventure, complete with illustrations.

"Just so we're clear, I claim no responsibility," Gabe said, when Peggy took the product of their labor to deliver it into Colonel Philip's waiting hands.

"Of course not."

"Good to know." Jones stomped into a mound of snow, leaving a perfect bootprint. "You think that's gonna be enough? We were light on the technology angle and heavy on the stuff that Sarge said he'd skin us for."

Steve smiled faintly. True. But then he had nothing to fear from Bucky, unlike Gabe, who would be made to run laps in the snow until he collapsed from heatstroke. "Don't worry about it."

"Cap," Gabe started hesitantly, "Hydra took him. Those fuckers went after him, didn't even blink at you, or the rest of us."

"Accident." Steve adopted his best parade rest, feet apart, hands behind his back, gaze fixed on the far horizon. "The apple peddler picked us because we were going out. Anyone could have grabbed the poisoned apple. They were after me, for all we know." He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the frown on Gabe's face melt into something indulgent, if a little suspicious. It didn't worry him much. This was for Bucky's sake, and Gabe understood that.

"Yes, sir." Gabe threw a smart salute. "Permission to get wasted before Sarge kills me, so that I may go to my grave in a good mood?"

"Godspeed, soldier," Steve told him solemnly. "Order a round for the guys, will you? On me. Bucky's probably done that already, but order another one, anyway. That's an order. Dismissed."

"Yessir!"

Colonel Philips accosted them around the fire that very same evening, brandishing the carefully bound pages containing their report like a blunt weapon, his face a careful mixture of holy rage and helpless amusement. It was a good, if familiar, look on him, Steve thought, fighting off a knowing grin. Rather fitting, too.

"Very funny," Philips said. "Which one of you clowns is responsible for this farce?"

"By farce you mean…?" Steve asked, innocent to his very core.

"This report. I couldn't censor it if I tried, and believe me, I tried, and tried hard. There is not enough black ink shipments coming through to get the job done."

"Every word is true, sir," Steve said, catching the look of disbelief on Bucky's face. Oh look, someone finally noticed the lovingly rendered blood-red apple on the cover.

 _What the fuck, Rogers?_ Bucky's affronted gaze asked, to which Steve could only muster a grin.

 _What, you expected me to be nice about it?_ Steve shot back with a twitch of an eyebrow.

"That's not—" Philips began, but a delicate chirp, barely audible over the crackling of the fire, cut into his words. "Excuse me?"

Bucky, with his face carefully void of all emotion, reached into his pocket and held out a loosely curled fist. He opened it one finger at a time, revealing a fledging sparrow. The bird hopped onto his finger, cocking its little head and regarding the fire with one beady eye after the other, before turning back to Bucky. Silence fell, as though someone had cast a spell. The bird chirped once more and Bucky chirped back, offering up a crumb of bread he'd just pinched from Morita, which the sparrow attacked with a delighted trill.

Colonel Philips turned red enough to compete with the fire. "I see," he said, tossing the file from hand to hand. "Well then, since you have assistance from your woodland friends, Snow White, I can expect the actual report on my desk by sunrise. And no more of this bullshit."

"Wouldn't dream of it, sir!" Bucky said, saluting and accidentally getting the sparrow airborne in the process. The poor thing twittered, as though offended, and landed on top of his head, where it sat and fluffed up all its feathers.

Steve couldn't hear a word after that, not for a long while. Not when every single one of his Commandos burst out in booming, maniacal laughter, one that carried throughout the night and up into the sky, along with the smoke.

 

**New York, 2015**

Steve truly does like the story. He learned to like it again not that long ago. Oh, it's always been funny, from a certain point of view, but only recently it became something he could genuinely enjoy. He still shouldn't have told it in front of everyone.

He paces outside the door for a few minutes, biting his lip in worry. Bucky asked to be excused, but he retreated to the shared room on their floor, not his bedroom, not the metal panic freezer – the hilarity of which Tony swore by and subsequently has not been yet forgiven for – which meant that he couldn't possibly want to be alone.

Not literally alone.

How easy it is to fret, Steve thinks with his heart in his throat, and lightly presses his fingertips against the door to the drawing room. There's nothing electronic in them, Steve made sure of that. Just plain old handles, not even a lock. If Bucky is in here, and the door isn't barred—

Never mind, it swings open with a push; it isn't even closed.

"Do I even like apples?" Bucky asks. He's standing by the enormous window, staring at the half-eaten apple in his hand, scrunching his nose, and for a second Steve forgets that the fingers that grip the fruit are made of an alloy that makes Tony Stark soil his pants in excitement. He sees, instead, Bucky as he once was, dutifully forcing down all vegetables put in front of him, regardless of their taste or lack thereof, the only indication of opinion being that adorable nose-scrunch.

"Not if you could have pineapple instead," he says, dropping the apple he brought into a fruit bowl waiting on a cabinet by the door, mouth dry all of sudden. "You never refused apples, not that I know of. We didn't get fresh fruit often, but you always preferred pears or peaches, and that one year your sister got you a fresh pineapple for your birthday. You ate the whole thing in one sitting."

Bucky makes a sound that could be a puff of candy floss, were it given tangibility.

"You don't dislike apples," Steve tries.

"I know that. I _know_ that."

"Buck," Steve starts saying as he comes to a stop next to the window, close enough that he can feel Bucky's warmth through his sweatshirt. He's close enough that his heart settles, as it never can without Bucky at his side, but at the same time he's too close now. Bucky is no longer a shadow returned from the dead. He's Steve's Bucky again.

He is Steve's.

Steve knows Bucky is being watched constantly. He knows. The anger he feels about it is low, simmering, and directionless at this point, because he is not an idiot: he knows that Bucky is watched around the clock chiefly for his own peace of mind. He also knows his friends are career spies and soldiers, and insufferable know-it-alls. He knows that they are watching them speak right now, because Natasha's concept of privacy is not like his, and Sam grew up in a world where letting people on another continent know what you had for lunch is the norm. As for Tony, well, Tony doesn't like to not know about things that go on anywhere in the world, let alone his own house.

"You okay there, pal?" Bucky asks, a slight frown on his face. "Your heart is beating fast."

"We're being watched," Steve says, trying to ignore the three very discreet cameras capturing his every move.

"I can ask JARVIS for a black-out." Bucky is looking down, his head angled away from the camera, his lips barely moving. "He'd still be recording, but, unless it's an emergency, the files would be blacklisted for everyone."

"No, it's okay." Steve shakes his head and leans a little bit in, drawing a deep breath and travelling back in time. The detergents are less soapy now, the cologne is a little fancier (best seventy dollars Steve ever spent, truth be told. Like the commercial says, the smell of fancy cologne on your best guy: priceless), and because of that Bucky smells different, too. There's no more brilliantine and shoe polish, or gunpowder and oil, but Bucky's here, Bucky's home.

Bucky's here and so here's home, Steve thinks and feels a little stupid for it.

"Your pulse is spiking," Bucky observes clinically, soft fingertips brushing Steve's wrist, pressing against the delicate arteries there.

"I'm still not used to being watched." The knowledge no longer paralyses him, as it always had, even back when the only one watching was God. It feels daring, brave, to turn his hand and twine his fingers with Bucky's, even when he knows where the cameras in the room are and knows how to angle himself away from them. He doesn't. He won't.

He wonders if Bucky knows. If he remembers the apple that Peggy threw at him, that time their eyes met and they knew. They never spoke of it, after, just continued the joke, like that was all, like it was funny. And it was funny. It was. Funny enough to stave the hunger in his gut that he thought nothing would quench, not until they were both safe at home, in Brooklyn.

"You brought me an apple," Bucky says, and he is smiling as he does, mischief and laughter in his eyes. He is looking at the fruit bowl by the door, where the solitary red apple is sitting atop a pile of green grapes and equally green apples. He has to know, Steve thinks when Bucky meets his eyes and Steve sees them soften, sees it when they dart to his mouth for a split second.

He knows, Steve thinks, his heart in his throat beating in fervent joy, in anticipation of finally, finally being whole again, as he leans forward one inch at the time.

Bucky's mouth tastes of the apple he didn't quite finish.

Steve curls his right hand around Bucky's waist, pulls him close and ends the kiss. Bucky is staring at him, both his hands resting on Steve's chest, the half-eaten apple forgotten where it tumbled to the floor, and then his eyes light up with a smile. That smile, and Steve will bet all of his earthly possessions on this, will cause Sam and Nat to ramp up their game to dangerous levels in order to see it for themselves, even when they know they never will. Because this smile is his, his and Bucky's, and it is soft and shining and warm, like an August afternoon in Brooklyn, like snowflakes melting on skin and a cloud of breath against a bared throat in the middle of winter; it is a secret and a memory and a declaration. And it is _theirs_.

Steve knows about the unofficial competition Sam and Natasha have; he endorses it. Anything that makes Bucky smile is good and there needs to be more of it. Still, he can't help looking up at the camera and grinning, so that they know he knows, and also that no matter what they do and the heights they climb, this is a game Steve started winning back in the Good Old Days and will not relinquish the championship for anything.

Bucky is still smiling and Steve loses his train of thought entirely, but for once all he can think is _bon voyage_.

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you get better soon, Alkja! *hugs*
> 
> PSA: I added an extra picture in chapter one. For more art/random thoughts my tumblr is [here](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/).


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